小拓：在给大家介绍MIT啤酒分销游戏之前，先给大家介绍一个人，他的名字叫Jay Wright Forrester。下面信息来自MIT官网 https://news.mit.edu/2016/professor-emeritus-jay-forrester-digital-computing-system-dynamics-pioneer-dies-1119

Professor Emeritus Jay Forrester, digital computing and system dynamics pioneer, dies at 98

The inventor of an early form of RAM had an outsized influence on organizational dynamics, supply chains, and sustainability.

Jay W. Forrester SM ’45, professor emeritus in the MIT Sloan School of Management, founder of the field of system dynamics, and a pioneer of digital computing, died Nov. 16. He was 98.

Forrester’s time at MIT was rife with invention. He was a key figure in the development of digital computing, the national air defense system, and MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. He developed servomechanisms (feedback-based controls for mechanical devices), radar controls, and flight-training computers for the U.S. Navy. He led Project Whirlwind, an early MIT digital computing project. It was his work on Whirlwind that led him to invent magnetic core memory, an early form of RAM for which he holds the patent, in 1949.

MIT Sloan Professor John Sterman, a student, friend, and colleague of Forrester’s since the 1970s, points to a 2003 photo of Forrester on a Segway as an illustration of his work’s lasting impact.

“He really is standing on top of the fruits of his many careers,” Sterman said. “He’s standing on a device that integrates servomechanisms, digital controllers, and a sophisticated feedback control system.”

“From the air traffic control system to 3-D printers, from the software companies use to manage their supply chains to the simulations nations use to understand climate change, the world in which we live today was made possible by Jay’s work,” he said.

Systems dynamics: A new view of management

It was after turning his attention to management in the mid-1950s that Forrester developed system dynamics — a model-based approach to analyzing complex organizations and systems — while studying a General Electric appliance factory. An MIT Technology Review article explores how he sought to combat the factory’s boom-and-bust cycle by examining its “weekly orders, inventory, production rate, and employees.” He then developed a computer simulation of the GE supply chain to show how management practices, not market forces, were causing the cycle.

Forrester’s “Industrial Dynamics” was published in 1961. The field expanded to chart the complexities of economies, supply chains, and organizations. Later, he cast the principles of system dynamics on global issues in “Urban Dynamics,” published in 1969, and “World Dynamics,” published in 1971. The latter was an integrated simulation model of population, resources, and economic growth. Forrester became a critic of growth, a position that earned him few friends.

“Many businesses, government officials, and academics hated it,” Sterman said, “yet today, the collision between the finite resources of our planet and population and economic growth drives issues from climate change to deforestation, collapsing fisheries, resource conflict, and mass migrations.” Four of Forrester’s students would rely on his ideas to write “The Limits to Growth,” a 1972 book that helped to launch the field of global modeling and the sustainability movement around the world.  

In many ways, system dynamics stands in opposition to the idea that a charismatic or talented leader can steer a wayward firm to success, a tension Forrester explained to MIT Technology Review.

“Very often people are just role players within a [company’s] system,” he said. “They are not running it; they are acting within it. This has not been a popular idea with people who think they are in charge … but in fact, unless they are knowledgeable in systems, they will fall into a pattern of doing what the system dictates. If they understand the system, they can alter that behavior.”

At MIT Sloan, Forrester created the Refrigerator Game, a supply chain simulation that teaches the principles of system dynamics. It was later dubbed the Beer Game and remains a popular exercise during student orientation.

“What made Jay so special is because of his background in digital computing, he saw, with the advent of the digital computer, the ability to do simulations that were both large-scale and practical,” said MIT Sloan Professor Nelson Repenning. “He appreciated that far before anyone.”

From the family ranch to MIT

All this from a boy who grew up working the family ranch.

“I’ve had several careers,” he told MIT Technology Review. “Starting with ranch hand.”

Forrester was born July 14, 1918 in Nebraska. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nebraska in 1939. He arrived at MIT the same year as a graduate student in the School of Engineering, earning a master's in 1945. He joined what would become the MIT Sloan faculty in 1956 and retired in 1989.

“To me, Jay was MIT,” Repenning said. “He showed up to work on gunsights and radar mounts for the U.S. military, ended up playing a pioneering role in digital computing, and suddenly became a social scientist. I can’t imagine that happening anywhere else. It was the perfect match of a unique person [and institution].”

Sterman said Forrester had high standards as a teacher, but that submitting work to his rigorous inspection was rewarding.

“It was a great experience to have Jay mark up one of your papers with his red pen,” he said. “The way to learn the most from Jay was first of all to recognize that he was probably right and you were wrong, and secondly, to just be grateful for the gift of all that criticism, because everything you did after that was better.”

Forrester was married for 64 years to Susan (Swett) Forrester, who died in 2010. He is survived by a daughter, Judith; two sons, Nathan and Ned; four grandchildren, Matthew, Julia, Neil, and Katherine; and two great grandchildren, Everett and Faraday.

MBAer: At MIT Sloan, Forrester created the Refrigerator Game, a supply chain simulation that teaches the principles of system dynamics. It was later dubbed the Beer Game and remains a popular exercise during student orientation.

大智：对，之前我们在刘红著的《供应链牛鞭效应建模与仿真》一书的绪论中了解到：“1984年，麻省理工学院的J.D.Sterman教授为证实牛鞭效应的存在主持了一项供应链物流管理动态模拟实验——啤酒实验。”后来，又在其中的国内外研究评述中了解到“牛鞭效应研究的一个里程碑式的进展源于著名的"MIT啤酒分销游戏"。”带着好奇，我就搜寻了MIT官网提供的有关“J.D.Sterman”教授的信息：

John D. Sterman | MIT Sloan

John D. Sterman is the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Professor in the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He is also the Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group and the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative。

MBAer: 噢，然后你们就顺藤摸瓜的发现了Jay W.Forrester? 

小拓：是的，在这之前，我们一直在尝试对供应链信息管理理论进行追根溯源，后来一次偶然机会，在用"TRIZ 、供应链"作为关键字在知网进行信息检索时发现了西南交通大学物流学院的黄庆、杨智懿、周贤永曾在2009年发表过一篇名为“基于QFD/TRIZ理论的供应链信息流的集成研究”一文，在这篇论文中我们曾发现了一些关于Forrester的线索，里面提到了以他为代表的学者研究过牛鞭效应的信息失真问题，然后我就联想到刘红著的《供应链牛鞭效应建模与仿真》

大智：是的，刘红著这本《供应链牛鞭效应建模与仿真》里提供的信息更为丰富，不过也带给了我们一些新的好奇。

MBAer：什么好奇？有关 the Refrigerator Game？

小拓：不仅如此~

MBAer: 还有什么？

大智：相对而言，我们对Forrester产生了更多好奇~

小拓：是的，这个Forrester可不简单 ~

MBAer: 看了Forreste的简介，现在我对你们的游戏更感兴趣了，冰箱、啤酒、接下来是什么？

小A：茶 or 蜜饯？

Church | MIT Sloan School of Management, Zach. "Professor Emeritus Jay Forrester, Digital Computing and System Dynamics Pioneer, Dies at 98." MIT News. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 19 Nov. 2016. Web. 22 Nov. 2016..