The Mexico-China Sourcing Game: Teaching Global Dual Sourcing
Gad Allon
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, g-allon@kellogg.northwestern.edu
Jan A. Van Mieghem
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, vanmieghem@kellogg.northwestern.edu
Abstract
We describe a three-hour class on global dualsourcing built around a game that demonstrates the challenges inmaking operational decisions, and transfers recent academic insightsto the classroom. Student teams manage a firm with access to aresponsive but expensive supply source (Mexico) and a cheap butremote source (China). Each team must determine a sourcing strategyto satisfy random demand that is revealed throughout the game. Ineach period, teams place orders to both sources and manage twoassets: inventory and their bank account. The goal is to maximizeeach team's value (final bank balance). During the debriefings, weanalyze the policies used by different teams along both financialand operational metrics, present the optimal strategy, and summarize the experiential learning points.
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Citation Information
Allon, G., J. A. Van Mieghem. 2010. The Mexico-China sourcing game: Teaching global dual sourcing. INFORMS Trans. Ed. 10(3) 105-112. Available online at http://ite.pubs.informs.org/.
DOI: 10.1287/ited.1090.0045