A live supply chain and finance simulation game. Your team is an entire supply chain, grain to storefront, and you run one link of it. Order, brew, ship and pay for every guess. Highest net profit wins.
Pour Decisions is a business simulation game built on the MIT Beer Game, the classic classroom exercise for teaching supply chain dynamics. Each team operates one complete supply chain for a craft brewery. Four players take the four roles, and every player sees only their own orders, inventory and costs. Nobody sees the whole picture.
That is the point. Small changes in demand at the retail end swell into wild swings in orders upstream, the bullwhip effect, and every team discovers it the hard way: empty shelves one week, a warehouse of unsold inventory the next. Every unit held costs money. Every stockout is lost revenue. At the end of 24 rounds each team sees its full profit and loss statement, revenue, costs and net profit, and the leaderboard ranks every supply chain in the room.
The wrapper is a zombie-apocalypse brewery story, because it is more fun that way. The learning underneath is operations, inventory and working capital, the way a finance class and a supply chain management class would each want it taught.
Each role makes its own ordering decisions on limited information, with a one-week lead time between every link.
Raw materials. Produces grain against the brewery's orders and carries the cost of everything it grows too early.
Where the magic happens. Turns raw materials into product through a production pipeline, constrained by what the supplier delivered.
The backbone of the chain. Buffers the brewery from the retailer and carries backorders forward when it cannot fill them.
The face of recovery. Sees consumer demand first, and every unit it cannot sell is revenue gone for good.
Players register from a laptop, pick a seat on a team, and get a short role guide. The facilitator sets the scene and the rules in a few minutes. Nothing to install.
One round is one week. Every player places an order, ships what they can, and watches their inventory and costs move. Several supply chains play the same market at once.
Order patterns from every link are revealed side by side, the bullwhip effect appears on screen, and each team reads its own P&L. The facilitator walks the room through what happened and why.
The true cost of having too much or too little, and why lead times make both so easy.
How day-to-day operating decisions flow straight through to revenue, costs and net profit.
How sensible local decisions add up to global consequences nobody intended.
Balancing risk when you cannot see ahead and cannot see your partners.
It is built on the MIT Beer Game, the classic supply chain simulation, and keeps its core mechanic: four roles, each seeing only its own orders and inventory, with lead times between them. Pour Decisions adds a shared profit and loss statement, carrying and stockout costs, a leaderboard across teams and a facilitated debrief, so the finance lesson lands alongside the operations one.
Ninety minutes is the floor: a short briefing, 24 rounds of play and a debrief. It expands to a half-day immersive session when there is more time for discussion.
From 4 players, one team, up to 40 or more. Several supply chains run at once against the same market conditions and the leaderboard ranks every team by net profit.
A laptop or desktop with a web browser and the match code from the facilitator. Nothing to install. The game runs fully virtual, fully on-site with the facilitator's screen projected, or any combination.
SetFire Foundation facilitates every session. SetFire is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity, and proceeds support its free undergraduate mentorship program. Book a 30-minute walkthrough for a quote tailored to your cohort size and learning objectives.
Watch a real round in motion, talk logistics, and get a quote tailored to your cohort size and learning objectives.
SetFire Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. Proceeds support our free undergraduate mentorship program, The Sparks Mentorship Program.