Junk

Anil Satish

Jeff Miller

The Near Beer Game

In the past I took BMGT389I and had to do this program before. I believe that I did the original beer game, but I cannot remember if it was similar. This game seemed simple enough and the concept was not difficult to grasp. When the game started I was at equilibrium then tried to match what I needed as demand increased. Unfortunately, they did not come fast enough and I lost some possible orders due to it. I started buying larger amounts to plan ahead for demand and that begun to work for a few weeks. I had a small surplus, which was a problem because it made I spent extra money that I didn’t need to. I started reducing my orders, but still high enough to maintain most demand of 50-60 orders. The problem came when the demand somehow jumped to 100 and I didn’t have enough. By week 40 the demand was too high and it took too long for my orders to come in. The amount of lost orders I had was the greatest at this point in time. Then when the orders came in and when I started to buy more to meet the demand the customers were already upset and started buying less. Now I had an enormous surplus and the cycle basically repeated itself. What I should have done in the beginning was anticipate a larger demand and buy what I needed well in advance. As I begin to have a surplus I should have reduced the amount I ordered instead of completely stop purchases. There is of course no way to know the exact demand I would have, but it would be better to have more than less. When I had insufficient amount of beer I should have purchased much more, that way I can get as much orders as possible while the demand was high. No matter what it is almost impossible to truly anticipate what will happen. I think that is the point of this game. In the end the point is to minimize as much loss as possible.