Red Bead and Beer Game consolidation?

["Prevette, Steven S" <Steven_S_Prevette@rl.gov>]

I have run both, and it seems to me that the basic aim of each exercise
would argue against trying to combine them.

A lesson of the Red Beads is the influence of random variation, and attempts
to react to the common cause variation as special cause.

A lesson of the Beer Game is the effect of time delays in the decision
processing loop.  It takes a very simplistic, deterministic set of data and
shows how time delays and human emotions make the exercise highly unstable.
If I were to use random numbers for the customer demand I would definitely
make a "wicked" problem out of this, and for advanced students of systems it
could be, well, let us say interesting.  And yes, all you would have to do
is load the customer deck with random numbers about a certain average and
UCL/LCL.  You could even us the red bead box to generate the orders, but
since you don't want the suppliers to see the customer demand, you would
have to do this ahead of time.

Steve Prevette
Occupational Safety and Health
Fluor Hanford, A Fluor Government Group Project
ASQ Certified Quality Engineer
steven_s_prevette@rl.gov
509-373-9371