This is a game of six stations with set game boards and role ascriptions, thirty-five players, a range of supply concepts, several thousand Lego bricks, a great number of containers, lorries and ships. It is the goal of this game of quick rounds to produce eight Lego vehicles in three versions each according to a pre-determined production plan in two plants. »SYNNECTA Global Logistics« is a strategic simulation game that brings the full complexity of logistics to life.

If you are not a logistician, you won’t think it is so much of a challenge to deliver a component from a Chinese supplier to a German installation site.

Consider, however, that this component, together with thousands of other just-in-time components, needs to arrive – potentially in a particular order – at that installation site undamaged, having traveled around half the globe: being delivered by suppliers via a packaging service, placed into a container, going by ship to Europe, by lorry to a deconsolidation facility, put in intermediary storage to then go on again by lorry directly or via another, plant-internal storage stage… It is beginning to sound rather more complex and considerably more likely to fail! Yet a company’s logistics field will successfully supply in such by now global goods streams in about 99% of the cases.

It is nevertheless becoming more and more frequently impossible for individual logistics staff – especially at large companies – to maintain a complete overview of these highly complex global streams with countless parts and a range of material flows and supply paths and therefore to fully understand the contexts and dependencies.

That is why we developed this strategic logistics game in the course of a client project. The fundamental goal of this game is to allow the players to fully experience the entire logistics chain and the repercussions of different supply concepts. It also, obviously, covers topics such as interface coordination, communication, cooperation and, last but not least, is fun for the participants.

Between 25 and 40 employees can play our strategic game together and experience the logistics chain: beginning with a range of suppliers, they move on to transport, elements of delinkage and internal plant logistics, and eventually construct Lego vehicles. The supply concepts can be altered in the course of the game. The repercussions of such adaptations are immediately felt by the participants. Playing time for each game is about half a day, including reflection and application to practical experience.

If you wish to gain more detailed insight, we will be delighted to send you our strategic game concept. Please contact Thomas Meilinger, E-Mail: meilinger@synnecta.com