How Magdeburg’s supply chain optimization is in the business game

Magdeburg – against

Logistics – This was something with the flow of goods, transportation and warehousing. But what exactly is it, how does logistics work? This can be shown, for example, with terminal blocks.

Logistics becomes understandable with the use of anchor blocks

And that is exactly what 40 students experienced in June at the Cross-University Business Games event of the Logistics Department of the Magdeburg-Stendhal University of Applied Sciences at the Fraunhofer Institute in Magdeburg.

This event was held with great success in the last summer semester together with the University of Saxony-Anhalt and the Otto von Guericke-University (OVGU). 40 students from different departments participated in the bilingual event. In addition to potential industrial logisticians and engineers, there were also students of the English course Sustainable Resources, Engineering and Management – short stream – from the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences. The goal of the interactive business game was to be able to better understand the complex processes and systems within logistics and production. The event was led by Prof. Fabian Behrendt and Prof. Sebastian Trojan, Professors of Logistics at the Magdeburg-Stendal and Anhalt Universities, and Dr. Tobias Reggelin (OVGU) and Niels Schmidtke (Fraunhofer, IFF).

The students were divided into three teams, with each team representing an imaginary company. One person was responsible for a particular production process. In the form of a token competition, they competed with each other to see who could develop the most successful company with the best strategies at the end of the day.

Ten rounds were played in the logistics event

With the help of terminal blocks, the students recreated the terminals within the supply chain and thus faced various problems. In a total of ten rounds, each of which must represent a day’s work, several scenarios were played and evaluated within the course. In this way, possible solutions can be put into the interim stages and implemented directly in the next round. “After the first rather chaotic rounds, we were able to apply all the information from the study and look at the results. It was interesting to see how the effects of decisions paid off over a few rounds of the game,” says Oliver Lehner, a student at Magdeburg Stendhal University of Applied Sciences. And a participant in the business game.

The management game is important for communication between students

The event was very well received by students, as it provides a practical link to supply chain theory and operations within logistics, and they particularly benefited from the combined specialist knowledge of the three institutions. Since they each have a different focus in teaching logistics and production, students can combine their skills in the form of a simulation game.

Equally big factor in event success is networking within the community. Sophie Bollmann, a student at the Magdeburg-Stendhal University of Applied Sciences, also thinks so: “I think it is positive that students from different universities and faculties participated, which made it possible to exchange ideas with each other.” Especially for young people who are at the beginning of their careers, it is important to have a network within the profession. They can expand and consolidate that at events like this. There are also plans for the coming years. Upcoming events will also be held in other locations.

Behrendt is satisfied with the implementation of the second business game: “The solutions and strategies developed by students at the hackathon (a hardware and software development event) usually become second nature for them. Of course, trying them in practice is a very different thing than simply teaching theory, because this knowledge is acquired in a natural way. It lasts a very long time.”