Rolling the dice on global supply chain sustainability: A total cost of ownership simulation

Abstract

Sustainability in management education is a potential solution to societal challenges, influencing students' worldviews and attitudes to contribute to a more profound social change. Through this innovative dice-based classroom simulation, students are exposed to supply chain sustainability, total cost of ownership (TCO), and risk management while also understanding their linkages through effective instructor debrief. Student teams compete by selecting sourcing options such as supplier location, transportation methods, and sustainability reputation from a menu, then see how their decisions fare as the product-line life cycle is simulated with a dice. The debrief facilitated by the instructor compares and contrasts results across the teams, generating insights into the interrelationships between supply chain sustainability choices, TCO, and risk management. Successfully conducted by multiple instructors, in multiple countries, and across all levels of management education (undergraduate, master of science, and executive master of business administration), survey results (n = 350) plus a pilot study (n = 31) confirm that this dice-based simulation accomplishes multiple learning objectives while also providing a highly engaging experiential learning classroom environment for this sample.