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100 second reflection for week 12
Think for 100 seconds, and summarize the key things that you learned in the class in week 12 (Global Supply Chain Management Simulation).
The global supply chain management simulation was not as rewarding as the beer bottle simulation as there was little control over production (w/o incurring a $2 million fee) once the process was initiated. It was interesting to assess and forecast demand and calculate production allocations using different methods each time and seeing how they unfolded each year.
It’s hard to estimate demand, but it’s important to not follow the consensus for every year. It’s important to distribute the production of each product both near and far. Sometimes the demand of the model that takes a while shoots up past possible production. It’s important to save the cost of changing procurement in the middle of the year.
I thought this simiulation was fun. We were able to make decisions on what options to add to a product and depending on what we chose it would change the demand. Making the decision for how much to produce and from what supplier had to be the most difficult part but after awhile you get use to it. Overall i think it was an interesting and fun simulation.
I thought the simulation was interesting, but also helped to teach us a lot. The biggest takeaway I received from the case is the analysis between risk and reward. Many of the options they offered had a sense of risk/reward attached to it and the thought process involved in deciding which option we should choose really allowed us to experience something we normally don’t get to when making decisions.
When comparing the global supply chain management simulation with the beer game simulation, I would have to say that I enjoyed the beer game simulation more. My reasoning for this is that the global supply chain management simulation did not allow for very much control over production once the process was initiated. That is, a change could be made but it was accompanied by a $2 million fee. Overall, it was fun to make supply chain decisions and then to later see how your decisions affected the profitability of the overall firm. Additionally, the board members were an interesting, unique, and helpful medium for teaching the students!
I thought the Global Supply chain management simulation was easy to understand. In the being my team member and I made a few mistakes by adding in feature that increase uncertainty and effect our ability to accurately forecast for the following year but after reducing the features we were able to increase sales and revenues.
I enjoyed the beer game more then than the global simulation because you had to anticipate your teammates decisions. In the global simulation it was mostly just following the advice the simulation gave you. The beer game was more challenging and overall a pretty fun experience.
The Global simulation was a great teaching tool for me personally. It lead me through the simulation and gave me reasoning behind decisions. It taught us the correlation between the risk and reward involved in supply chain management. We were able to see the impact of doing one decision versus another and it lead to better overall understanding for me personally.
I thought the simulation was interesting, but it was tough to master, even after several attempts. The simulation really measured the risk/reward when developing a product. When choosing various designs for our product, I sometimes did not agree or understand the board of directors responses. However, the simulation was a great teaching tool, but I preferred the beer game.
The week 12 production simulation was very interesting. It was interesting to see how the media and other factors played significant roles in supply chain. The key learning I took from the case was a company needs to diversify its supply chains to 1) alleviate costs and 2) eliminate lead times on unexpected shifts in demand.
I learned that it is important to pick suppliers that are green and they can have as much an impact on your business as you do. Also, today it is important to be a ‘green’ company and to advertise that you are you need to make good strategic partnerships that reflect your decisions.
• the simulation was interesting because you need to analyze your decision using future demand forecast before you implement it for the next period of production and see the results at the of a period. In addition, it was hard to forecast the future demand, and estimated demand at the beginning of the period can change during the production. The decisions that you made at the beginning may need to be changed or adjusted and to make any changes is expensive. Also, I learned that consensus estimation is good to use when you forecasting, but not always. In some cases is good to use the average estimation. For example, using the average estimation may be helpful when the demand for a particular product fluctuates too much and it has high risk.
The global simulation game was a great in-class learning tool. It helped us put into practice what you have been teaching. I learned a lot about sourcing, but also a lot about consumer demand.
The Global Supply Chain Management Simulation taught me a lot about forecasting demand and production decisions. Average and consensus numbers do not always provide you with accurate estimates of your demand, proving that demand is very unpredictable. When it came to choosing suppliers, deciding between the domestic and overseas companies and how much to allocate to each was a difficult decision. If your demand was inaccurate, it was most likely that the amounts you allocated would be insufficient; this is the main reason why my partner and I always had to spend the extra $2 million to change our orders. The lesson I learned from this game is that demand dictates the whole supply chain, and attempting to minimize costs when demand is uncertain is very difficult.
The Global Simulation taught us how to forecast and distribute production properly. It’s a process when you take into account how certain features affect projections of sales. Research is very important so you can figure out the number to order and how to allocate to different suppliers. Overall, I enjoyed the GSCMS and thought it provided a real-world example of supply chains.