Team: Yujin Tao, Nagendra Kumar

1. Before the game:

a. What model would you use to make ordering decision?

A: We used the periodic review model to make our inventory decisions and place orders
when required.

b. What information is relevant for the decision?

A: To make our decisions, we used the weekly demand data, our weekly orders to our
wholesalers, our weekly receipt of shipments (to determine the pipeline inventory).

2. After the game:

 What were your general impressions?

A:
- The success of the supply chain depended on coordination between the retailers,
wholesalers, distributors, and manufacturers.
- Without the knowledge about the remaining entities in the supply chain or their
ordering/shipment process, the success of the supply chain depends on luck.

 What were your observations during the game?

A: The demand from the end customer was almost linear. Initially the customer demand
was about 50K a week, and then remained at almost 125K a week for the rest of the
game.
- The wholesalers faced nonlinear demand as we would order a quantity equivalent
to 4 weeks’ demand.
- There were many weeks when we received zero shipments despite placing orders
4 weeks’ prior as the wholesaler did not receive shipment from the distributor.
- The distributor and perhaps the manufacturer were very erratic in their shipments
which caused us to incur costs.
- As a retail in the whole supply chain, we can just get limited information from our
customer and make orders based on the information. Because of the inventory cost
and backlog cost, we just want to make sure that our inventory can meet the
demand and at the same time we don’t have too much inventory. Because we
don’t know what’s the strategy of other parts, the backlog becomes larger and
larger. Even though it reduces until the final several weeks, it’s too late. So, from
our part, if we can share information with our wholesaler, we can place the order
better and avoid the excess or the shortage of the supply. Also, with the sharing of
the information, we can adjust our strategy to minimum the cost of all four parts
instead of our own part, which is the key to the operation management.