The X-supply game

© 2018 Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). All rights reserved. This paper introduces the X-Supply Game (XSG), a multi-player, team-based, online pedagogical game that simulates on a small-scale system dynamics found in real supply chains. It challenges players to take on the roles of virtual stations managers in a small supply chain. XSG is played in turns, in which players analyze weekly standings of their stations and decide on orders to suppliers and shipments to customers, and simultaneously deal with multiple competing objectives involving inventory, backorders, fulfillment rate, and transportation resource utilization. The game highlights the inherent difficulty and the importance of tighter integration to achieve higher performance supply chain wide. The XSG is influenced by previous supply chain simulation games, such as the Beer and Wood Supply games, however, it extends on them to include the triple bottom line performance evaluation concept in addition to game configurability and accessibility. For configurability, much of the game setup can be configured to create various game scenarios, including different supply chain network topologies. As for accessibility, the game is designed to run on most internet capable devices, and its source code is released under an open source license allowing its adoption and extension by instructors around the world