IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jas/jasssj/2013-163-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Mathematical Model of the Beer Game

Author

Abstract

The beer production-distribution game, in short “The Beer Game†, is a multiplayer board game, where each individual player acts as an independent agent. The game is widely used in management education aiming to give an experience to the participants about the potential dynamic problems that can be encountered in supply chain management, such as oscillations and amplification of oscillations as one moves from downstream towards upstream echelons. The game is also used in numerous scientific studies. In this paper, we construct a mathematical model that is an exact one-to-one replica of the original board version of The Beer Game. We apply model replication principles and discuss the difficulties we faced in the process of constructing the mathematical model. Accordingly, the model is presented in full precision including necessary assumptions, explanations, and units for all parameters and variables. In addition, the adjustable parameters are stated, the equations governing the artificial agents’ decision making processes are mentioned, and an R code of the model is provided. We also shortly discuss how the R code can be used in experimentation and how it can also be used to create a single-player or multi-player beer game on a computer. Our code can produce the exact same benchmark cost values reported by Sterman (1989) verifying that it is correctly implemented. The mathematical model and the R code presented in this paper aims to facilitate potential future studies based on The Beer Game.

Suggested Citation

  • Mert Edali & Hakan Yasarcan, 2014. "A Mathematical Model of the Beer Game," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 17(4), pages 1-2.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2013-163-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jasss.org/17/4/2/2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joel H. Steckel & Sunil Gupta & Anirvan Banerji, 2004. "Supply Chain Decision Making: Will Shorter Cycle Times and Shared Point-of-Sale Information Necessarily Help?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(4), pages 458-464, April.
    2. John D. Sterman, 1989. "Modeling Managerial Behavior: Misperceptions of Feedback in a Dynamic Decision Making Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 321-339, March.
    3. Sterman, John D., 1989. "Misperceptions of feedback in dynamic decision making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 301-335, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ledwoch, Anna & Yasarcan, Hakan & Brintrup, Alexandra, 2018. "The moderating impact of supply network topology on the effectiveness of risk management," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 13-26.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li Chen & Hau L. Lee, 2012. "Bullwhip Effect Measurement and Its Implications," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 771-784, August.
    2. Arunachalam Narayanan & Brent B. Moritz, 2015. "Decision Making and Cognition in Multi-Echelon Supply Chains: An Experimental Study," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 24(8), pages 1216-1234, August.
    3. Yang, Y. & Lin, J. & Liu, G. & Zhou, L., 2021. "The behavioural causes of bullwhip effect in supply chains: A systematic literature review," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    4. Noel Watson & Yu-Sheng Zheng, 2005. "Decentralized Serial Supply Chains Subject to Order Delays and Information Distortion: Exploiting Real-Time Sales Data," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 7(2), pages 152-168, May.
    5. Son, Joong Y. & Sheu, Chwen, 2008. "The impact of replenishment policy deviations in a decentralized supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 785-804, June.
    6. Hau L. Lee & V. Padmanabhan & Seungjin Whang, 2004. "Comments on "Information Distortion in a Supply Chain: The Bullwhip Effect"," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12_supple), pages 1887-1893, December.
    7. Cantor, David E. & Katok, Elena, 2012. "Production smoothing in a serial supply chain: A laboratory investigation," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 781-794.
    8. Sarkar, Sourish & Kumar, Sanjay, 2015. "A behavioral experiment on inventory management with supply chain disruption," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 169-178.
    9. Enrique Holgado de Frutos & Juan R Trapero & Francisco Ramos, 2020. "A literature review on operational decisions applied to collaborative supply chains," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(3), pages 1-28, March.
    10. Wang, Xun & Disney, Stephen M., 2016. "The bullwhip effect: Progress, trends and directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(3), pages 691-701.
    11. Zhao, Yingshuai & Zhao, Xiaobo, 2015. "On human decision behavior in multi-echelon inventory management," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 116-128.
    12. Ancarani, A. & Di Mauro, C. & D'Urso, D., 2013. "A human experiment on inventory decisions under supply uncertainty," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 61-73.
    13. Haines, Russell & Hough, Jill & Haines, Douglas, 2017. "A metacognitive perspective on decision making in supply chains: Revisiting the behavioral causes of the bullwhip effect," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 7-20.
    14. Lai, Richard, 2005. "Bullwhip in a Spanish Shop," MPRA Paper 4758, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Kim, Ilhyung & Springer, Mark, 2008. "Measuring endogenous supply chain volatility: Beyond the bullwhip effect," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 172-193, August.
    16. Hwarng, H. Brian & Xie, Na, 2008. "Understanding supply chain dynamics: A chaos perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(3), pages 1163-1178, February.
    17. Wöhlert, Lydia, 2021. "Fairness bei der Performancebewertung in Supply Chains: Eine mehrstufige Literaturanalyse zum State of the Art," Ilmenauer Schriften zur Betriebswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre, volume 1, number 12021.
    18. Pastore, Erica & Alfieri, Arianna & Zotteri, Giulio, 2019. "An empirical investigation on the antecedents of the bullwhip effect: Evidence from the spare parts industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 121-133.
    19. Berry, D. & Naim, M. M., 1996. "Quantifying the relative improvements of redesign strategies in a P.C. supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 181-196, December.
    20. Towill, Denis R. & Zhou, Li & Disney, Stephen M., 2007. "Reducing the bullwhip effect: Looking through the appropriate lens," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1-2), pages 444-453, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2013-163-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Francesco Renzini (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.