Teaching Supply Chain Management Using an Innovative Practical Game

Abstract

This paper presents a new practical game which helps undergraduate students to understand how the concept of supply chain management (SCM) works. The game uses a simple supply chain structure incorporating three entities of the supply chain: supplier, plant, and customer. The game employs a set of toy building blocks such as LEGO® blocks and has the rules of the game, responsibility of each player, product descriptions and bill of materials. This competitive game is used supply chain cost as the measuring to determine the winner team of the game and the Bloom's taxonomy as guidelines to develop the assessment testing based on the learning objectives of courses. This proposed board game has been tested by many undergraduate students who are taking SCM and Logistics Management courses. The results show that the students who played the game reached the higher scores of assessment testing than students who didn't play the game. Furthermore, most students have also positive view about this game.