Fruit Beer Game

The Fruit Beer Game is a digital, multi-round supply chain simulation built upon the classic MIT Beer Game. Four players each manage one node in a linear supply chain — Retailer, Wholesaler, Distributor, and Factory — placing orders upstream each round to meet downstream demand while striving to minimise total supply chain costs and maximise service level. AI bots automatically fill any unoccupied roles, ensuring the supply chain remains complete at all times.

The simulation vividly demonstrates the Bullwhip Effect: how small variations at the retail level create massive order  amplification upstream. This dynamic mirrors real-world episodes such as Procter & Gamble's Pampers supply chain in the early 1990s, where modestly fluctuating retail demand produced severe order swings across wholesalers, distributors, and  raw material suppliers — tying up working capital, disrupting production schedules, and degrading service levels. The Fruit  Beer Game recreates these dynamics in a controlled classroom setting and concludes with a personalised automated debrief that helps each participant connect their in-game decisions to broader systemic insights, making the learning both experiential and analytically grounded.