Robert H. Smith School of Business - University of Maryland, College Park

Smith School to Host First Serious Gaming Competition
Among MBAs Worldwide

Alexander Verbraeck, a professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Smith affiliate researcher and one of the chief architects of the game, traveled to College Park to help run the global debut
of the game in October 2006.

Teams from top business schools throughout the United States, Europe and Asia will compete Tuesday, March 27, 2007 in the first-ever Global Supply Chain Competition, a revolutionary real-time simulation developed by researchers at the Smith School and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Competition sponsor Sun Microsystems Inc. donated prizes and powerful servers to host the Web-based game, in which players will compete virtually, all logging on simultaneously from their home campuses to manage the most efficient supply chain.

Prizes will be awarded to each student on the three teams commanding the highest profit in the simulation at the end of the four-hour competition. Top prize is portable GPS systems for each team member; second prize, Apple iPods; and third prize, digital cameras.

During the game each team, representing a competing computer firm, must decide what types of computers to manufacture, where to locate factories, where to source parts, where to sell and how to price its products, and how to transport goods. They must also forecast sales and place orders based market conditions that change in real time.

Currently, the Smith School uses the game as an educational tool in classes. Supply Chain Management Center co-directors Sander Boyson and Thomas Corsi have used the game with students throughout its five-year development, first as a PC-based game, then as a local area network game before Sun donated the T-2000 servers to make the game available via a Web portal. The team tested the servers with a trial run of the game, played by students from five schools around the world on Oct. 24, 2006. Fourteen teams from the following schools will participate in the March 27 scaled-up global competition:

Arizona State University, W.P. Carey School of Business
Michigan State University, Eli Broad College of Business
The Ohio State University, Fisher College of Business
Pennsylvania State University, Smeal College of Business
University of Oklahoma, Michael F. Price College of Business
University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business
University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management
The University of Tennessee, College of Business Administration
University of Groningen, Netherlands
Management Development Institute, India
CERAM Sophia Antipolis, European School of Business, France
Turku School of Economics, Finland
Nankai University, China
Soochow University School of Business, Taiwan

Highlights from the March 27 global game
Related story in April 2007 Logistics Today magazine (sidebar)
Read more about the game's debut last October.

▓ Carrie Taschner, Office of Marketing Communications