WP Carey Orientation, Day 3
Day 3 was the shortest of the 4 main days. We had 3 hours of faculty introduction, which was okay since most of the teachers were pretty interesting. The two more interesting activities we did was "Team Decision Making" and "The Beer Game".
Team decision making was an exercise that I'd played in high school. Basically, we divided into 6 teams. There were 8 rounds. Each round, each team had to pick either RED or BLUE. Based on that choice, we either won or lost points for our team based on whether we were in the minority or majority (eg. if more teams picked red than blue, the teams that picked red would lose points and the teams that picked blue would gain points).
We were told to bring $1 in quarters, which the professor collected, and then given minimal instruction before we started. Immediately, the teams started competing with each other, trying to outguess each other and rack up points for their own team at the expense of the other teams. We were given some chances to have a meeting of team representatives to see if we could come to some agreement, but for the most part, we didn't. At the end of the game, only two teams were in the positive scores! They got back 1 quarter for each point, and the teacher kept the bulk of the change! The point of the game was to see if we realized that ultimately, the enemy wasn't the other teams, it was the teacher who had all our quarters... But of course, we're so trained to compete in school with other people or other teams that we just naturally enter that mode when put in something that seems like a competitive setting, even if it's not to our mutual benefit!
The beer game was much more interesting to me. It, unfortunately, did not involve real beer. The idea behind the game was to illustrate points from supply chain management -- namely, the bullwhip effect. The bullwhip effect is an effect from having lag in the supply chain that amplifies fluctuations. The basic setup was this: at the left end of the table was a retailer. The retailer received order for cases of beer from customers. The retailer had so many cases of beer in his inventory, and then he would order more from the wholesaler. The wholesaler would receive his orders from the retailer, and could order more beer from the distributor. The distributor received his orders from the wholesaler, and could order more from the factory. The factory (which, in my group, was me) received orders from the retailer and decided how much new beer to make. The tricky part was this: although orders were made instantaneously, any beer the factory created, or any beer shipped up the supply chain took 2 weeks to arrive! As a result, you had to guess ahead what the demand for beer might be, and order accordingly. Of course, our guesses were quite wrong.
My team had some pretty serious problems. The guy playing the wholesaler decided that keeping a big inventory was too expensive, and so he trimmed down his inventory and ordered little. As a result, the distributor built up excessive inventory. When that happened,t he distributor stopped ordering from the factory. Then, when the orders got bigger, the wholesaler started ordering more beer, to the point where he completely depleted the distributor's inventory. By the time the distributor realized he needed to order more from the factory, it was too late and orders were piling up. The factory (me), which had been producing nothing suddenly got massive orders, for which there was no way to anticipate. Accordingly, I started to pump out huge amounts of beer to take care of all these excess orders. As the beer worked it's way up the supply chain, everyone ended up with HUGE inventories, and the number of orders tapered off as the inventories trickled into the retailer who passed them along to the customers. In other words, the wholesaler caused a small fluctuation, which was amplified by the distributor, and amplified again by me, the factory.
At the end of the game, we counted up our score. It turns out, one of the groups had done exceptionally well and beaten the all-time high score. My group, however, beat the all time WORST score! As a booby-prize, we each got ASU shot-glasses, which was pretty cool considering how poorly we did.
I found myself missing my friends who are into playing strategy games with me -- we probably would have done a lot better!
In the evening, my group went out to the Gordon Biersch brewery and had dinner. I ordered a chicken sandwich with some awesome garlic fries and a "wedge". "Wedge" is what they call their salads. I didn't know why until they delivered it -- it was literally a quarter of an iceburg lettuce with dressing on the top. I had to pick it apart to eat it! Interesting idea, not so great in practice. But at least they had hefewiezen on tap, and it was tasty!
Team decision making was an exercise that I'd played in high school. Basically, we divided into 6 teams. There were 8 rounds. Each round, each team had to pick either RED or BLUE. Based on that choice, we either won or lost points for our team based on whether we were in the minority or majority (eg. if more teams picked red than blue, the teams that picked red would lose points and the teams that picked blue would gain points).
We were told to bring $1 in quarters, which the professor collected, and then given minimal instruction before we started. Immediately, the teams started competing with each other, trying to outguess each other and rack up points for their own team at the expense of the other teams. We were given some chances to have a meeting of team representatives to see if we could come to some agreement, but for the most part, we didn't. At the end of the game, only two teams were in the positive scores! They got back 1 quarter for each point, and the teacher kept the bulk of the change! The point of the game was to see if we realized that ultimately, the enemy wasn't the other teams, it was the teacher who had all our quarters... But of course, we're so trained to compete in school with other people or other teams that we just naturally enter that mode when put in something that seems like a competitive setting, even if it's not to our mutual benefit!
The beer game was much more interesting to me. It, unfortunately, did not involve real beer. The idea behind the game was to illustrate points from supply chain management -- namely, the bullwhip effect. The bullwhip effect is an effect from having lag in the supply chain that amplifies fluctuations. The basic setup was this: at the left end of the table was a retailer. The retailer received order for cases of beer from customers. The retailer had so many cases of beer in his inventory, and then he would order more from the wholesaler. The wholesaler would receive his orders from the retailer, and could order more beer from the distributor. The distributor received his orders from the wholesaler, and could order more from the factory. The factory (which, in my group, was me) received orders from the retailer and decided how much new beer to make. The tricky part was this: although orders were made instantaneously, any beer the factory created, or any beer shipped up the supply chain took 2 weeks to arrive! As a result, you had to guess ahead what the demand for beer might be, and order accordingly. Of course, our guesses were quite wrong.
My team had some pretty serious problems. The guy playing the wholesaler decided that keeping a big inventory was too expensive, and so he trimmed down his inventory and ordered little. As a result, the distributor built up excessive inventory. When that happened,t he distributor stopped ordering from the factory. Then, when the orders got bigger, the wholesaler started ordering more beer, to the point where he completely depleted the distributor's inventory. By the time the distributor realized he needed to order more from the factory, it was too late and orders were piling up. The factory (me), which had been producing nothing suddenly got massive orders, for which there was no way to anticipate. Accordingly, I started to pump out huge amounts of beer to take care of all these excess orders. As the beer worked it's way up the supply chain, everyone ended up with HUGE inventories, and the number of orders tapered off as the inventories trickled into the retailer who passed them along to the customers. In other words, the wholesaler caused a small fluctuation, which was amplified by the distributor, and amplified again by me, the factory.
At the end of the game, we counted up our score. It turns out, one of the groups had done exceptionally well and beaten the all-time high score. My group, however, beat the all time WORST score! As a booby-prize, we each got ASU shot-glasses, which was pretty cool considering how poorly we did.
I found myself missing my friends who are into playing strategy games with me -- we probably would have done a lot better!
In the evening, my group went out to the Gordon Biersch brewery and had dinner. I ordered a chicken sandwich with some awesome garlic fries and a "wedge". "Wedge" is what they call their salads. I didn't know why until they delivered it -- it was literally a quarter of an iceburg lettuce with dressing on the top. I had to pick it apart to eat it! Interesting idea, not so great in practice. But at least they had hefewiezen on tap, and it was tasty!
posted by Tarindel @ 3:06 PM
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