PIPELINE

The Supply Chain Game

Your team runs a supply chain together. One person orders beer from the next. A simple shift in demand will test whether your chain stays coordinated or falls apart.

Player guide

Objective: Reveal how local decisions create system-wide instability and bullwhip effects.

Setup: Join with the code from your facilitator and take your assigned supply chain role.

How to play: Each week, every role places an order based only on local inventory, backlog, and incoming demand signals.

Your role: Make weekly ordering decisions from your local view, then compare how those local decisions affected the full chain.

End condition: Lowest total system cost wins. Debrief why rational local decisions produced irrational system behavior.

Host a Game

Host guide

Set the number of chains, start the briefing, pace weekly orders, review weekly summaries, and move to final results after the planned weeks.

Room code: ----
Lobby

Share this code

----

Tell players to go to pipeline.mylearninghub.asia and enter this code.

Each supply chain needs exactly 4 players: Retailer, Distributor, Warehouse, and Factory. The game starts once all roles are filled.

Supply Chains

Join a Game

Room code: ----
Lobby

Waiting for the host to start...

You joined as

Supply Chains

Room code: ----
Briefing

The Supply Chain Briefing

Players are reading their role briefings. Click Start Game when everyone is ready.

How the game works

Each supply chain has 4 roles in sequence: Retailer → Distributor → Warehouse → Factory. Every week, customer demand arrives at the Retailer. Each player can see only their own stock and the orders from the role below them. Players decide how much to order from the person above them. Orders take time to arrive. At the end of 20 weeks, the chain with the lowest total cost wins.

Cost structure

Holding cost

$0.50 per unit in inventory per week. Having too much stock is expensive.

Backlog cost

$1.00 per unfilled order per week. Failing to deliver costs more than holding stock.

Room code: ----
Briefing
Waiting for host to start...

Your supply chain

Costs to remember

Holding cost
$0.50
per unit in stock, per week
Backlog cost
$1.00
per unfilled order, per week
 · 
Week 1 of 20
1:00
In Stock
Backlog
Demand This Week
Total Cost So Far
$—
Shipments on the way to you:

Place your order to upstream

How many units do you want to order from ?

Host View
Week 1 of 20
1:00
Orders collected: 0 / 0
Waiting

Supply Chains — Live

Week 1 results
Waiting for host...

What happened this week

This Week's Cost
$—
Total Cost
$—
Host View — Week 1 Results

Chain Summaries

Final Results
Game Over
DEBRIEF
The Supply Chain Game
Reflection
Waiting for the first question...

Results Recap