Arvid C. Johnson, Ph.D. Dean and Professor of Management Edward A. and Lois L. Brennan School of Business Dominican University River Forest, IL 60305-1066

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Goldratt’s Game: The basic purpose of this exercise is to help students understand the impact and interaction of statistical fluctuations and dependent events on the stylized process flow shown in the figure below, which consists of several (typically 5 to 6) separate, defect-free operations with queues (inventory buffers) between them. Rules of the Game: A single period (or run) of the simulation proceeds as follows:   The student responsible for the first operation rolls the appropriate number of dice to determine how      many pieces of "raw material" s/he is able to process and moves that number of units into the queue      between the first and second operation. (For purposes of the simulation, it is assumed that raw material is always available.)

Last Modified: 23 May 2005