Global Dual Sourcing Game

Instructions

The Dual Sourcing Game runs best in Firefox.
Click here to download.

Questions, comments, or suggestions on how to improve?
Please contact us.

*This game supersedes the Informs Transaction paper.

Getting Started

Click the Instructor Login link located at the bottom right of the screen.
Use the username and password that was sent to you by email to login.

Game Setup - Teams

It is best to start with your team setup. To do so, select "Teams" from your Instructor Controls.

Here you can add and/or delete teams from your game. Four teams will be automatically loaded for you as a starting point. To add additional teams, click the "Add new" link.

When you add a new team, you assign both a team name and password. The password will be case sensitive. This information will need to be provided to your students at the start of the game so that they can login. Here is a sample deck of slides for communicating team name and password information to your students.

Often the actual number of students in class may be less than planned.  It is best to set up teams based on maximum enrollment, but then quickly "delete"'some teams at beginning of class in real time.  

Game Setup - Parameters

***Parameters must be set correctly in order to initiate the game.

From you instructor controls, select "Parameters."

Here is where you can adjust the currency, retail price, unit price if sourced from China, unit price if sourced from Mexico, and the interest factor. Interest must be expressed as a decimal rather than a percentage: Click save once you are finished.

Game Setup - Demand

From you instructor controls, select "Set Demand."

Demand is automatically set for 40 turns, plus 4 initial priming periods where demand is zero. In order to customize the demand, simply cut and paste your demand into the demand window. Your demand should be in text format with a line break after each entry. Please leave at least your first 3 periods at zero for priming periods. Click save once you are finished. Orders from China take 4 periods to arrive, whereas orders from Mexico only take one period.

In the Classroom

Refer students to the same url that was sent to you via email. Students will need to login by team, so now is the time to distribute team names and passwords. Please also ask students to synchronize their local clock with an internet site such as time.nist.gov. This will minimize differences between the local clocks and the server clock, which can adversely effect game play. Please refer to the helpful documents (above) for further information about useful classroom instructions.

Initializing the Game

From your instructor controls, select "Periods."

Game initialization and administration can be done from your Instructor: Periods window. You can begin and advance the game either manually or automatically using the game timer. In the beginning, it might be best to start new periods manually until students are accustomed to the game flow. To advance periods manually, simply click the "Start New Period" link in the "Ready" column. Once you are ready to use the game timer, click the "Start Timer" button. Please note that you can adjust the interval (in seconds) of the timer throughout the game, with new interval taking effect in the following period. To do so, input a new interval into the text field and click update. . We typically start with 90seconds and then gradually speed up the game; 40sec is a fast pace. You may also stop the timer any time you wish.

Should you need to reset the game at some point, e.g. if you accidentally start your game timer before the start of play, you can reset the data by clicking the "RESET" link in your instructor controls. This will reset the player order data only; it will not delete your team setup or demand.

Administering the Game

You can monitor the team order data from your Periods window. You will see each team's order as it is made, which will include units sourced from China, units sourced from Mexico, and the team's total balance. This notification is very helpful initially, especially when you are advancing periods manually.

Here is the team view after they submit an order:
The other view you will be interested in displaying for the class is the "Result Status" view. Please note that this is different the the "Results" link in your instructor controls. The "Result Status" link is located next to the Instructor Login link at the bottom right of the screen.
The Result Status screen displays the current period, the demand for the period, and a graph of each team's current value. Please note that it may not be in your best interest to display this screen from the beginning, as it can be easy to discern each team's strategy in the first few periods. To effectively administer the game, you should consider displaying this screen on extended desktop (once you deem it "safe") while you continue to monitor the Periods window.

Concluding the Game

You can conclude the game from the Periods window by clicking the link "STOP GAME AFTER THIS ROUND," located towards the bottom of the screen. You can also select "Results" from your instructor controls, which then displays six different graphs: All the data from the game can be downloaded as a .CSV file (readable in Excel) by selecting the link "Data Download" from your instructor controls.

FAQs

What should a team do if its screen froze?
Just reload the page.

One of my team's timer goes off to quickly and they are unable to place an order. What should they do?
Make sure all laptops use the same Internet site to sync time—a government site is better than the default Microsoft site.

Interest factor-example says input should be decimal, eg, 1.01; what does this mean? Does this mean the interest per month is 1.01 percent or 1 percent? If I wanted (say) 5% interest per period, do I input 5.00 (or 1.05)?
1.01 means 1% per period.

Note says there is a backorder cost of 20,000 period. Is this right? And is this a fixed parameter?
The game itself is played with lost sales. The notes is meant to say that this is equivalent to very high cost of backlogging.

Teaching note suggests China cost of 7000, Mexico cost of 8000 and price of 10,000. Is there any reason not to use these numbers?
You can modify the cost numbers. The numbers were chose after some trial an error. In the game I will play in class this Monday, I wll use 7250 for the cost of Mexico.

Same on demand (note says gamma with mean 10, sigma 15)?
We no longer use this demand stream. If you look at the spreadsheet provided to the students, under "Historical order data", there are ten time series for ten skus. We now tell the students that the demand will come from the same distribution, but we do not provide the distribution.

Software says to set first three demands to zero – yet note suggests that you would set first four periods to zero? What do you suggest?
Set to four so that the orders from China arrive for the first period of demand.

I am assuming once a period is completed, each team can no longer place an order in that period – no way of going back, unless you RESET, which brings you back to period one. Is this right?
You cannot place orders to previous periods.

Is it OK to give them the spreadsheet in the prior class? And can you send me the mini case, plus an invoice for 40 students?
I usually give them the spreadsheet on the class before and ask them to think about strategies. I use the first minutes of class to go over the game, but then ten minutes into the class start playing it. Our classes at 1:30 long, so we try to debrief during the class itself.