Abstract:

Teaching complex systems is a complex issue itself and the consolidation of knowledge on complexity is an important challenge for teachers. It’s been said that to obtain different results something different must be done and with that idea in mind, we describe in this work the experience of exploring how the use of “The Beer Game” may influence positively the process of learning as a catalyst in the process of understanding the concepts of complexity from the perspective of Systems Thinking and System Dynamics.

We introduced the concepts of complex systems to two groups of university students in the area of engineering with similar seniority in their formation process. With one of the groups, the complex systems and complexity topics were introduced the regular way, following a fixed part of a syllabus, each comprehending 4 sessions of 2 hours of lectures.

With the other group, the “beer game” was used to introduce interactively students to the terminology and concepts of the complexity behind the contextualized supply chain problem, the beer game, that is, the logistics problem of a beer distribution chain as a dynamic behavior that can be understood from a systems perspective. These playing sessions took around 4 hours in total, having the students time to reflect, think and do some homework on their own. The four hours left were used to introduce the concepts of complex systems, always contextualizing with the example they interacted with in the previous sessions.

Both groups were passed a general complex systems / complexity assessment after the four sessions aimed at this topic. We statistically compared the results, and this analysis suggests that systems thinking methodology using “The Beer Game” can positively improve the process of learning and the consolidation of knowledge in the students.

Keywords:

Systems thinking, complex systems, system dynamics, the beer game.