Game Rules
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Welcome to The Beer Game!
You can click on the stopwatch to pause the game.
Your objective is to keep your costs as low as possible. This is how the game works:
- Each case of beer you have in stock costs $1 per week
- Each order that you cannot fill results in a ‘backlog’, and each case of beer on backlog costs $2 per week
- The game will last a maximum of 52 weeks – you must keep cumulative costs (all your weekly costs added together) as low as possible.
- The supply chain consists of the retailer, the wholesaler, the distributor and the manufacturer.
- Customers buy beer from the retailer, the retailer places orders with the wholesaler, the wholesaler places order with the distributor, and the distributor places orders with the manufacturer.
- Orders take two weeks to be ‘received’ by the next upstream step (e.g. from the retailer to the wholesaler).
- Deliveries move downstream (e.g. the distributor ships orders to the wholesaler). Deliveries take two weeks to arrive at the next downstream step.
- Each week, you will place an order to the next upstream step. You will receive what you have ordered 4 weeks later (2 weeks for the next upstream step to receive the order and 2 more weeks for it to arrive at your location).
- Each outgoing delivery reduces your stock by the number of cases of beer you ship.
- Each incoming delivery increases your stock by the number of cases of beer you receive (i.e. the order you placed 4 weeks ago).
- Each week, you must decide how much to order by changing the number on top and clicking on ‘Order’.
- You will see on your screen how much you have in stock, how many cases of beer are on backlog (if any), your cumulative cost so far, the incoming order for that week, and how many cases of beer have just arrived – that is, your incoming delivery.
- Use the above information to decide how many cases of beer to order each week.
Good luck and good game!
Welcome to the advanced mode of The Beer Game!
You can click on the stopwatch to pause the game.
Your objective is to make as much profit as possible. This is how the game works:
- Each case of beer you have in stock costs $1 per week
- Each order that you cannot fill results in a ‘backlog’, and each case of beer on backlog costs $2 per week
- You earn money by selling beer. Each case of beer you deliver brings in $6 in revenue
- “Bank” shows the amount of money you have in your bank account
- Money comes into your account when you sell beer, and goes out of your account when you have backlogs, and to pay for keeping beer in stock
- The game will last a maximum of 52 weeks – you must aim to have as much money in your bank account as possible.
- The supply chain consists of the retailer, the wholesaler, the distributor and the manufacturer.
- Customers buy beer from the retailer, the retailer places orders with the wholesaler, the wholesaler places order with the distributor, and the distributor places orders with the manufacturer.
- Orders take two weeks to be ‘received’ by the next upstream step (e.g. from the retailer to the wholesaler).
- Deliveries move downstream (e.g. the distributor ships orders to the wholesaler). Deliveries take two weeks to arrive at the next downstream step.
- Each week, you will place an order to the next upstream step. You will receive what you have ordered 4 weeks later (2 weeks for the next upstream step to receive the order and 2 more weeks for it to arrive at your location).
- Each outgoing delivery reduces your stock by the number of cases of beer you ship.
- Each incoming delivery increases your stock by the number of cases of beer you receive (i.e. the order you placed 4 weeks ago).
- Each week, you must decide how much to order by changing the number on top and clicking on ‘Order’.
- You will see on your screen how much you have in stock, how many cases of beer are on backlog (if any), your cumulative cost so far, the incoming order for that week, and how many cases of beer have just arrived – that is, your incoming delivery.
- You can see the stock, backlogs and other information of the other players at any time, by clicking on “buy a snap”. For every click, €5 will be removed from your bank account.
- Use the above information to decide how many cases of beer to order each week.
Good luck and good game!
Equilibrium
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Congratulations!
Tutorial
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Tutorial
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Order out
Delivery in
P3
Stock : 4
Backlogs : 0
Order in
Delivery out
Week X income and expenses:
Stock
- Previous week's stock: X
- Incoming delivery: X
- Outgoing delivery: X
- New stock: X
Cumulative cost
- Former cumulative cost: X
- Inventory cost: X
- Backlogs: X
- Sales: X
- Cumulative cost: X
The beer game
Beat the Bullwhip Effect and test your supply
chain skills with our online game.
Your name:
Orders
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Place your order here
This is the amount of cases of beer that you have in inventory. Your stock changes each week as an incoming delivery arrives, and an order from your customer ships out. Watch your stock level closely as it costs $1 for each case of beer
you hold in stock,
but it costs $2 for each case of beer on backlog (an order from your customer that you cannot fulfill). Hover over the numbers for stock, backlogs, and cumulative cost at any time during the game to see how it changed last week.
Enter the amount of cases of beer that you want to order each week here. You can change the amount using the up or down arrow keys or by entering a number. When you are ready, click on the ‘Order’ button. Once you click on the ‘Order’
button, the game
moves to the next week, meaning that you have delivered an order, received an incoming delivery and added cost based on how much you had in inventory and how much you had on backlog.
This is the amount of beer cases that your customer has ordered from you. This amount will be shipped to your customer next week, which means that it will be removed from your stock.
This is the amount of beer cases that are arriving from your supplier. This amount will enter your stock next week.
This is the amount of cost you have accumulated throughout the game to this point (i.e. total cost for all weeks so far). Each week, your stock and backlog costs are added to stock and backlog costs from all previous weeks to give you
your cumulative
cost. Consider your orders wisely as your goal is to keep cumulative cost as low as possible.
Backlogs
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Backlogs represent the number of unfulfilled orders you have accumulated. Each week, you will pay 2$ per backlogs until you have enough stock to fulfill them.
Low Stock
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Your stock is depleted! Beware of the Backlogs.
High Stock
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You have a lot of stock! Inventory costs will rise…
Backlogs
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You're missing deliveries... order more beer!
20%
Week 1
30
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