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Learning through Chaos: The Beer Game at TAPMI

August 4, 2010: The students are seated in the task of retailers, wholesalers, distributors and factory; the consumer of beer awaits them with his orders. The students are emotionally intense. They are unable to coordinate between the consumer demands and also keeping costs low. It is here when the silent blame game begins. The frustration leads to escalating the order quantities that leaves the entire chain facing a tsunami and the resultant pile of stocks. The post-game debriefing class resembles a cacophonic fish market. Beneath all this chaos, the Professor smoothly drives home the learning. This atypical scenario at a B school is known as the Beer Game, a role-playing simulation designed to internalize the Distribution System Behaviour. Such scenarios are aplenty in T. A. Pai Management Institute, where learning is extraordinarily experiential.

Beer game is a simulation exercise developed in 1960s at Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Sloan School of Management as a part of Jay W. Forresters research on Industrial Dynamics. The game enables the students to play a simulation of a supply chain and experience the dynamics of decision making with limited information. It specifically focuses the students attention to the impact of information on decision making and provides a base to discuss what has come to be known as the System Dynamics. Students get hands on experience of the practicalities of the obstacles in a supply chain.

Each player gets sufficient information but limited consumption information. Players keep records of their inventory, backlog and orders placed with their suppliers. Consumer orders are not known to any of the players in advance. The retailers are the first ones to discover customer demand like in a real life market situation. The rest of the members of the chain know only the order given by the person in the lower hierarchy.

Also famously known as the Bull Whip Effect game, this game facilitates one to make operational decisions. They manage the four areas of distribution chain. They play at each level as Retailers, Wholesalers, distributors and Factory. The game is how the players make decisions at each level as they receive consignment of beer. It is about how each one manages to keep low costs as well as meet consumer demands. The game facilitates internalizing of System Thinking. The game does not restrict itself to just problem solving but also about solving the problems of the future. It motivates one to think in a holistic manner.

The fun of the game revolves around the fact that there is no definite winner or loser in the game. At this point the student is surprised. Amidst the blame game they forget that like Macbeth they have brought their own downfall. And they themselves are responsible for the consequences of the decisions made by them. Players do not understand how their actions affect others. So they tend to blame each other. In this game becoming proactive is seen as problematic says R.C. Natarajan, Professor at TAPMI.

"I had expected MBA to be more experiential than my engineering course, and the beer game just to reinforce my faith. The real-time decision making taught me how much of the course has been internalized. While I was working, I had felt at so many junctures the lack of sound logic behind intuitive judgment - now I know that it is not going to happen anymore" says Subhayu Roy, a second year student of TAPMI.

It normally rates high on frustration as each person in the operational channel blames the other for the mistake committed by him/her. It is an emotionally intense game and helps the students to make decisions like in a practical scenario when he is bound to contingencies and uncertainties says Dr. Pratik Modi who was present at the game as an observer.

The structure of a system influences behavior of the players and their decision making ability. Human systems include the way in which people make decisions. People tend to focus on their own decisions and ignore how these decisions affect others.

To counter the challenges posed by the technologically, socially, and environmentally changing world, industries are galloping at to meet the changing demands. Students today face a world that is more dynamic, uncertain and ever changing. But the fact lies when the game is played with the Napoleon spirit My downfall raises me to infinite heights. This game instills power in the students and aids them to make decisions in a situation of information asymmetry.

About TAPMI: T.A.PAI MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE (TAPMI) is a leading management institute in India situated in the University town of Manipal, Karnataka and reputed for its academic rigour and faculty-student interaction. TAPMI boasts of a spectacular campus, excellent infrastructure, 100% student placements and Faculty who are experts in their field.

Since its inception in 1984, TAPMI has received recognition and respect amongst well-known industrial houses and academic institutions in India for the quality of its education. TAPMI is today amongst the top 1% of B-schools in India.

For more information on TAPMI, visit www.tapmi.edu.in

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