Publish at June 05 2012 Updated April 10 2024
The Wood Game is an online game that simulates business relationships in the forest industry between customers and suppliers. The forest products industry's value-creation network is the terrain where up to 7 participants must make management decisions to minimize the network's operational costs.
The game reveals the complexity of supply chain management, with the aim of minimizing inventory and shortage costs across the entire network, from forest harvest to end customer.
Warehousing and backorder costs are the ones to be minimized. Each business unit in the network has a warehouse, and each quantity held in inventory has a cost. The manager of each business unit must decide on the quantities to order from his supplier each week, so as to achieve a good level of service while minimizing warehousing costs.
Service level is measured by the availability of products in the right place at the right time. If products are not available when a sales order is received, a missed opportunity cost is calculated.
A game can last 25 or 50 turns (weeks). A turn can last between one and two minutes. A game can therefore last between 25 and 100 minutes. The game can be controlled from three different control panels: forest, sawmill complex and wholesaler.
Detailed instructions are provided.
The game was invented by Université Laval's FORAC research consortium.
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