Less beer, more couscous: gamifying supply chain education

A few years ago, I was running the classic Beer Game with my business students. If you teach operations or supply chains, you probably know it well. It’s a clever, browser-based simulation in which students take on roles across a supply chain so they can see how small decisions might trigger larger disruptions further along the line. The objective is good management of their ordering decisions so that their inventory costs are minimised in the long run.

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However, every time I ran the exercise, I noticed a similar pattern emerging. Students would concentrate hard, but not always on the right things.

While they were busy moving tokens around, double-checking calculations and trying to avoid mistakes, by the time we reached the debrief stage, many of them understood the outcome. But few could clearly explain how their decisions had led them there.

The learning was happening, but it felt much harder than it should be and was often buried under the mechanics of the activity itself. I kept thinking about this afterwards, wondering whether the problem wasn’t the concept, but the format.

When the tool interrupts learning

There’s a lot of enthusiasm around gamification in business education at the moment, and for good reason.

Done well, simulations can bring abstract concepts to life and give students an excellent chance of engaging with complexity in a realistic way. But not all games result in better learning, and not every format translates well into the classroom.

Modern supply chains are dynamic, interconnected and can often prove unpredictable. And yet we still tend to teach them through relatively static methods, such as lectures, diagrams or even well-written case studies that don’t quite capture the pace and uncertainty of real-world decision-making.

Students might understand the theory, but applying it under pressure with limited information and delayed feedback is another thing entirely.

The Beer Game was designed to bridge this gap, and it still does many things well. But in practice, especially in its traditional format, it can be slow to run and proves surprisingly fragile. Small errors in tracking orders or inventory can distort results, while fixed demand patterns make it easier for students to anticipate outcomes after just a round or two.

Most importantly, perhaps, the effort required to run the game can end up distracting from the bigger picture.

At some point, I realised that if I wanted students to focus on systems thinking, I needed to reduce the noise around the system itself.

Developing something closer to reality

The Couscous Game began as a relatively modest attempt to rethink how we were delivering this experience. The idea was not to replace the Beer Game entirely, but to keep its core insight around how individual decisions can destabilise a system, while removing some of the practical limitations that were getting in the way.

To address this, we developed a browser-based version that automates the mechanics: orders, inventories, costs and delays are all handled in the background. That shift alone changed the classroom dynamic because students no longer needed to worry about whether they’d moved the right number of tokens or calculated costs correctly. Instead, they could focus on what their decisions were doing to the system.

We also introduced variability into demand. Rather than following a fixed pattern, the system generates fluctuations, sometimes mild or abrupt, to force students to respond in real time. This makes the experience less predictable and closer to what they might encounter outside the classroom.

The project evolved further when one of our undergraduate students extended the initial prototype into a multiplayer version as part of his capstone project. This made the game more robust and flexible, while also reinforcing how these kinds of teaching tools can grow through collaboration, rather than top-down design.

Once we started using the game regularly, I was struck by how quickly our students adapted. In the early rounds, they made familiar mistakes such as overreacting to demand changes, building up excess inventory or assuming problems were caused by others in the chain.

But with clearer visual feedback and fewer distractions, they began to see key patterns more easily.

Instead of asking if their answers were correct, they started questioning why certain outcomes occurred. They compared strategies, questioned assumptions and tested alternative approaches. The learning process became more visible – not just to me but also to them.

We structured sessions in phases to support this. Students first learned the mechanics, then competed in teams, while often focusing narrowly on their own performance. Only afterwards did they step back and analyse what had happened across the system.

In later rounds, they are encouraged to coordinate decisions and share information. The difference in results, costs, stability and service levels are usually so clear there isn’t a need for much further explanation.

What this changes in the classroom

The most noticeable shift has been in the way students engage with the material. The simulation creates a space where they can experiment, make mistakes and immediately see the consequences.

This changes the class tone. It’s grounded discussions, and students have become more willing to question their own decisions and those of others.

It’s also changed how they understand supply chains. Instead of seeing them as a sequence of steps, they begin to recognise them as systems, where delays, information gaps and other local decisions interact in ways that are not always intuitive. This standard of understanding can be difficult to achieve through explanation alone.

Interestingly, the local framing of the game also plays a role. Using a familiar reference point for students in Morocco like couscous makes the experience feel less abstract, especially for students who might otherwise see supply chains as distant or purely theoretical.

At the same time, the principles remain fully transferable. The same dynamics apply whether the product is food, electronics or pharmaceuticals.

Because the game is open source and runs online, it’s also relatively easy for others to use and adapt. We have already seen interest from colleagues in other institutions, which suggests that this kind of approach can travel beyond its original context.

What to take from this

While this isn’t a finished model, and we continue to refine the tool and how we use it, a few practical lessons have emerged that may be useful to others working in similar areas:

1. Simplify the mechanics so students can focus on decisions. If too much attention is spent on running the activity, less remains for understanding it.
2. Introduce uncertainty into the system. Predictable scenarios limit what students can learn about real-world complexity.
3. Use the simulation as a starting point, not the end point. The discussion afterwards is where much of the learning happens.
4. Allow room for coordination and comparison. Students often understand systems better when they see how different strategies play out side by side.

Simulations won’t replace traditional teaching methods, and they don’t need to. But they can complement them in ways that make complex ideas more tangible.

In our case, a relatively simple, locally developed game has managed to help students engage more deeply with concepts that are otherwise difficult to grasp. This is a reminder that innovation in teaching doesn’t always demand large-scale investment.

Sometimes it starts by paying attention to where students are struggling, and then adjusting the experience so they can see more clearly what is going on.

Jawad Abrache is professor of operations research at Al Akhawayn University.

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