Candies Game illustrates the complexity of the decision-making process in business management where, as part of a supply chain, it aims to offer the highest level of service to customers by incurring the lowest possible operational costs. It is a logistics and procurement simulator with a completely new functionality and the most advanced technology that offers an exceptional tool for teachers and students who wish to analyze key aspects of the world of operations in an interactive and visual way.
Logistics and procurement simulator
Candies Game
The challenge of achieving the highest level of service at the lowest operational cost.
More information about our simulator
The challenge is to attain the highest level of service with the lowest operating costs.
In this simulation, students take the role of a distributor at the intermediate node of a supply chain formed by the manufacturer, the distributor and the point of sale. They perform operations with customers, from whom they receive orders; and suppliers, from whom they receive products. The objective is to manage the supply chain as efficiently as possible, offering the highest possible level of service while incurring on the lowest possible operating costs. The game takes place in a time window of 40 periods of time, which simulate as many periods of activity of the distributor. As with any operating model of real life, in each period students receive the demand from their customers and, by means of orders, they request products from their suppliers, operating from the distribution warehouse. On each period, the system generates a random demand arising from the customer node, which varies within a certain threshold.
The rules of Candies Game set forth revenues for product sales, carry and stock-out costs, purchase costs and lead times. It may be played individually or in teams, and the game offers a wide range of real-time graphical information regarding the level of service delivered and the profit accrued in each period. The simulation is available for individual users and organizations, including companies, educational centers and business schools.
- Demand
- Lead times
- Profitability
- Service level
- Stock control
- Carry cost
- Opportunity and ordering costs
- Process variability
- Supply chain bullwhip effect
It allows for the degree of difficulty to be adjusted and logs individual player results.
Candies Game has an administration module that is specially designed to provide specific value-added functionalities to educators. More specifically, the administrator may modify the contents of the parameters that impact the game’s behavior for his group of students:
- Suppliers’ product lead times
- Demand variability thresholds
- Players’ initial stock levels
- Unit selling price
- Unit opportunity cost
- Unit inventory carrying cost
- Unit purchase cost
This feature offers the instructor an ideal hands-on tool to explain the effect changes have across different operational variables of the gamification. For example, that of supplier lead times in the level of service and profit, testing whether it makes sense to pay more for the same product to a supplier that offers a shorter lead time, or comparing the effects of demand variability in stock management and profit.
It is recommended to encourage students to perform different playthroughs in which these parameters are assigned different values, increasing the difficulty and observing the impact on the level of service and profit graphs. Students may compete with each other to be the best.
Instructors also have access to the final result of each execution for each of the players in their group or instance; therefore, Candies Game may be used as an on-line evaluation tool.
- In-company education, schools of business, advanced education centres and universities
- Operations and Supply Chain Management subjects and programs
- Inventory Management and Logistics advanced training
- MBA programs and executive education
- Contact us and we will send you an offer according to your needs
- Pay per use: no downloads or software installations needed
- Available 24 x 7 x 365
- Gamifications self-service provisioning
- Payment methods: Bank Transfer
- We activate the service and you receive the Access Code and the Administration PIN by e-mail
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A different learning model
If you are interested in using Candies Games in your training processes, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.