PRAISE POURS IN FOR "FRESH CONNECTION" GAME

29 November 2010

PRAISE POURS IN FOR "FRESH CONNECTION" GAME

A fresh, new learning game for supply chain professionals, launched in South Africa by SAPICS (The Association for Operations Management of Southern Africa), is getting rave reviews from the industry, after the first SA round of the game was won by Volition Consulting Services.

The "Fresh Connection" pits teams of four against each other, in a web-based environment in which their aim is to save a fruit juice producer from its downfall.

"This competition truly lived up to its name, presenting a completely fresh approach to growing awareness and developing supply chain skills across industries," comments Volition MD Dean Tebbutt. ."It was also a huge success in connecting people from disparate corners of the industry in a fun, challenging and rewarding way."

"The Fresh Connection is a game, but it's a serious business," stresses SAPICS's Tonya Parker. "On one hand, the game offers participants a safe environment where decisions do not have consequences or impact on their businesses. On the other hand, the competitive elements makes participants want to win. In this game, they are physically able to experience how to manage a modern supply chain or test a strategy, while continuously adapting to the changing environment."

Aimed at any professionals within the supply chain field, Tonya notes that all that's needed for a team to play the Fresh Connection game is a computer with an Internet connection, and some quality team mates. Teams of four participate, and each game runs for six weeks, with each year representing six months in the real world. "Information and choices are presented to players via the Internet," she explains. The game was designed and developed in The Netherlands and has been played and supported around the world.

Dewald Oppermann, executive and technology business unit manager at Volition, and a member of the winning Fresh Connection team, rates the game as a "powerful learning aid". He sums up his team's Fresh Connection experience: "The Fresh Connection game presented Volition with a challenge right up our alley - help turn a company around by applying sound supply chain management principles." After a shaky start to the game, Dewald says that his team found their feet, and after week 3, Monday mornings saw the Volition team members eagerly anticipating the latest Fresh Connection results.

"By playing this game, we could expose a variety of people on all levels of the organisation to extremely relevant supply chain problems, and ways to address these," he reports. "Our key learnings were that a sound supply chain strategy provides the canvas for decision making, and that it's not about optimising individual functions, but rather about considering what will result in optimisation of the end-to-end chain. We also learnt that extensive analysis is not always necessary, but it helps confirm the high level sums.

"The value of this game is realised on two fronts. Firstly, it presents real world scenarios and real numbers. An extremely accurate scenario is thus created and enough supporting data is provided to do the relevant analysis." Some of the very relevant and realistic challenges that the game threw at the Volition team included declining overall market, costly and unreliable suppliers and a CEO promising the world to the market.

The compact decision and ensuing impact cycles of the Fresh Connection game also contributes to its value, Dewald says. He explains: "The impact of Friday's decisions can be seen on Monday, making the decisions and their impact on finances and other functions come alive in a way that is not always possible in real life.

"In combination, these factors make The Fresh Connection a powerful learning aid - one that we will be using in future."

Dewald's fellow team members were Warren Brusse, executive and supply chain business unit manager at Volition; Mohan Sambandan, senior supply chain consultant; and Anneri Robinson, senior supply chain consultant.

For more information on The Fresh Connection learning game, or to register a team, go to www.thefreshconnection.org.za, or contact Tonya Parker at SAPICS on 011 023 6707 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .