Simulation as an integral part of the Supply Chain Curriculum (Published)
Logistics and Supply Chain Management courses have relied on traditional lectures and the famous beer game to enhance learning. Although this simulation game creates greater understanding for students to learn supply chain concepts, it fails to model non-linear situations like capacity constraints. A teaching method that integrates such constraints into the curriculum of the course is provided in this paper to help students understand the challenge of managing supply chains. An action learning approach was adopted which involved providing a procedure for exercises solved using an industrial software, Supply Chain Guru. Additionally, twenty postgraduate and ninety four undergraduate students selected by purposive sampling provided feedback on their experience of using computer modelling to understand the subject better. The results show that students can enthusiastically acquire supply chain knowledge by using computer models to learn supply chain simulation. This paper introduces a new teaching method of teaching SC simulation using Supply Chain Guru software which is severely lacking in the literature.
Keywords: logistics and supply chain management; supply chain simulation and modelling; supply chain guru