Overview

The game is simple, you have perfect information about your customer demand. For the first 2 weeks your know your customers are going to demand 10 cases of beer per week. Then they will increase their demand to 15 cases.

Your Goal: Match your Finished Goods Inventory to Total Customer Orders and balance your production pipeline. You have 50 weeks to succeed. Return the system to equilibrium, so that 15 cases of beer are available in finished goods inventory week after week. You have 50 weeks to accomplish this objective. Accomplishing this is much harder than you might think!

How to Play

  1. Enter the amount of raw materials in the order field and click "order".
  2. It takes 1 week to order the materials, 1 week for your order to ship, & 1 week to brew the beer. After these 3 weeks, you will have beer to sell to your customers.
  3. Try your best to keep the Total Customer Orders & the Finished Goods Inventory in balance. You don't want excess inventory, or to have unfilled orders.
  4. If you do not meet the customer demand for a week, the unfilled orders will carry forward to the next week as demand.

The Beer Game

Congratulations!
You got your inventory balanced in week Game Over! You were unable to balance your inventory and production within 50 weeks. If you like, you can Exit the simulation and try again. You have a backlog. Your customers want cases of beer (including back orders), but you only have cases available. Your customers are thirsty! They would like you to deliver cases of beer to fill their new and backlogged orders, but you only have cases available. Your customers are annoyed that you don't have enough beer available. They would like a total of cases (both new orders and previous orders), but you only have cases to sell. Customers are clamoring for your beer! They are ordering a total of cases, but you only have cases available. You don't have enough beer available! Customers have ordered total cases (new orders + previous orders), but you have cases in Finished Goods Inventory. You've made too much beer! You have cases on hand, but your customers want only cases. Reduce your inventory. You have in Finished Goods, but your customers have ordered only cases. Cut back on production! You produced cases of beer, but your customers ordered only cases. You have quite a lot of beer available. You have cases available for sale, but your customers have ordered only cases. You've been pretty generous in ramping up production. You now have cases of beer available, but your customers are ordering only cases. Your Finished Goods Inventory matches Customer Orders this week.

Week 0 of 50

In Transit from Vendors

It takes one week for the raw material ingredients to ship from the vendor.

Beer Being Brewed

It takes one week for the beer to brew after the materials have been received from the vendors.

Finished Goods Inventory

This is current inventory level that you have to ship to customers.

New Unfilled Orders

Total orders minus the finished goods in inventory. Your goal is keep these as low as possible.

Shipments to Customers

The total numbers that are available to ship to the customers. If we have enough inventory, all the customer orders will be shipped.

New Orders from Customers

New orders from customers come in this current week.

Cumulative Unfilled Orders

All of the orders that you have not been able to fill in the past weeks

Total Orders from Customers

The sum of the current orders from customers plus the past unfilled orders.

Hey great job! You got the system into equilibrium in weeks!

Unfortunately, you didn't meet the customer demand within 50 weeks.
You had unfilled orders. Better luck next time!


Finished Goods Inventory
Total Customer Orders

Total Customer Orders
Cumulative Lost Orders and Cancelled Orders
Finished Goods Inventory
Shipments