testimonials
Stories & videos
The hidden gem of Unilever’s Procurement Week – an immersive supply chain business game!
In 2022, Inchainge had the incredible opportunity to be a part of Unilever's Procurement Week—a three-day program that brought together 80 procurement professionals, from entry to senior positions, from across Europe, involving them in an immersive training experience with the chance to experiment, learn and exchange ideas.
Corporate
HAN International School of Business | Master Circular Economy
At HAN International School of Business, we believe that our Masters of Circular Economy program is about empowering students to become change agents in transitioning the world from a linear to a circular economy. To help achieve this goal, The Triple Connection, a practice-based game, was introduced into the program.
Education
Empowering Students with Real-World Experience: An Insight from Stephan Verhasselt Lecturer at FHNW
Stephan Verhasselt is a lecturer at FHNW University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, where he has been teaching for over 10 years. With a background in mechanical engineering and a PhD in supply chain management, Stephan brings a wealth of industry experience to his classes. His goal is to prepare his students for the real world by providing them with hands-on learning experiences.
Education
How a home appliances company experienced an immersive circular transition
Knowing about circular economy is one thing, but implementing circular economy is way more complicated. That is why a large home appliances company formed a team for Inchainge's 3-week open program: Circularity Hands-On.
Corporate
The essence of supply chain management by Léo Ducrot
Supply chain management is about creating the operating model the company needs to realize its business strategy. It requires to make sure that all the actors of a company are working in the same direction. The Fresh Connection is the perfect tool to understand, experience, and observe the power (and challenges) of alignment. It is a very good learning experience and a lot of fun
Léo Ducrot, Supply Chain Planning Expert at OMP
Education
Lamb Weston brings S&OP alive
Weston has been working with the standard S&OP method for the past year. However, the manufacturer of frozen potato products is still in the process of learning and perfecting the approach. As part of that process, the board of directors arranged for the entire European management team to spend an afternoon playing the business game known as The Fresh Connection.
Corporate
Canon makes Collaboration Measurable
Intensive collaboration between various disciplines is a vital prerequisite for Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP). But how do you create the right mindset? Canon Europe arranged for 80 of its employees across five different time zones to take part in an in-company version of The Fresh Connection.
Corporate
Online experience with The Fresh Connection
Lecturer Mag. Biljana Roljic shares her experiences in delivering a course online with business simulation game: ‘The Fresh Connection’. Now that learning is taking place at a distance, she holds these debriefings via video call and structures lessons by recording her voice on PowerPoint slides.
University of Vienna, Austria
Education
UTi Puts Itself in its Customers’ Shoes
Logistics service supplier UTi aims to offer its customers integrated solutions that go beyond merely organising transport. Therefore, it decided to train its entire global sales team in S&OP – a process which logistics service providers would not normally bother with. The training method used: The Fresh Connection
Corporate
Benefits of the Inchainge Connect education community
Nicolai Rassolov is a recognized professional in the supply chain management field. He has been president of the APICS Montreal organization and has more than 20 years of experience in the sector. We are proud to have him as an experienced lecturer in our educator community. Watch this interview in which he shares his experiences!
McGill University, Canada
Education
DuPont takes Employees out of their comfort zone
DuPont runs several training sessions around the world to increase its managers’ awareness of the importance of internal cooperation and leadership. One key component of these five-day sessions is business game The Fresh Connection, which helps the chemical company to combat ‘silo thinking’.
Corporate
Still learning after a decade of The Fresh Connection
Lecturer Patrick Willems shares his experiences in delivering a course online with business simulation game: ‘The Fresh Connection’. While usually teaching face-to-face classes, he had to adapt and switch to a digital environment.
University of applied sciences UC Leuven-Limburg, The Netherlands
Education
Quotes
S&OP is all about communication and considering the implications for roles beyond your own.
The Fresh Connection makes collaboration measurable.
As a supply chain professional trainer and instructor, I was looking for something to integrate theories, best practices and personal knowledge into immersive learning approach. The Fresh Connections offers more than my expectations in all respects. As an instructor, I can explain the abstracted idea/information vividly with the immersive learning experience to my students. I would recommend The Fresh Connection – both to the academic and the corporate!
Xiaohu (Tiger) Qiao Certified TFC Instructor, Certified CPIM and CSCP Instructor
The Fresh Connection has enabled us to better appreciate the challenges that our customers face…
It has given us insights into the different business interests that Purchasers, Operations Managers and Sales Managers have.
The Fresh Connection is a valuable tool for developing cross – functional partnerships with key stakeholders in the value chain.
Parker Kapp Chief Supply Chain Officer at Philip Morris Australia
The Fresh Connection is a serious game that has added value to the GKN development program: a way to motivate teams in delivering performance using supply chain best practice out of their daily environment.
Cyril Fougerouse Global Supply-Chain Program Manager at GKN
We sell in Europe and we source from across the globe, this is an excellent platform for learning the importance of collaboration across the extended supply chain.
Peter Surtees Director of European Supply Chain at Kimberly-Clark
Participants in The Fresh Connection will be better prepared to deal with real life challenges and succeed in Agile and Changing Supply Chains.
Kevin Farrington Change Management Expert at 3pi International
The Fresh Connection was a challenging test of decision making, commercial awareness and learning agility that requires each individual to understand the impact of their role and actions on the profitability of the whole business.
Adam Lockwood Supply Development Manager at Mars UK
Every salesperson wants to be the best at selling, but if he does so to the detriment of the rest of the company there’s no longterm future. This becomes crystal clear by playing The Fresh Connection.
Niels Meijer International Sales Manager NW-Europe at Lamb Weston
The TFC business simulations is really an effective method for supply chain learning, from procurement, production, delivery to plan; from strategy to execution, from personal development to team collaboration.
Hao Hu Team JD.com – retail platform
Working alongside the corporates provided a perfect platform for sharing expertise…and also to appreciate the finer details of of those aspects of decision making that we didn't truly understand about each other's daily roles and responsibilities! Great tool for building these critical bridges.
Standard Bank
This is by far and away the most impressive product I have seen in a long while!
China Systems
One highlight was experiencing the real life dependencies and being able to see the effects of decision-making on the bottom line.
Deutsche Bank
The simulation is highly interactive and realistic. Great training tool!
DHL
The only time I have trouble getting my students out of the classroom is when we’re playing The Fresh Connection.
Dr. Roberto Perez-Franco Research Associate at the Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
We were one of the first to sign up to The Fresh Connection as we could see its benefits for bringing the training and development of our students to life in an imaginative way.
Professor Colin Bamford Head of the Department of Logistics at University of Huddersfield
Creating the curriculum with the teaching materials was easily done. I had very limited time and was able to set up an entire semester in one evening.
Professor Dr.Ing. Gaby Neumann Professor in Engineering Logistics at Technische Hochschule Wildau
Since several years, I am integrating the TheFresh Connection simulation with great success in my Supply Chain Management courses at Bachelor and Master Level!
Michael Lustenberger Research Associate, Center of Strategy & Operations, ZHAW School of Management and Law, Winterthur, Switzerland
Mastering the Supply Chain is an excellent book that not only covers the understanding of core supply chain management principles but also adds a guided approach to mastering them.
Prof. Dr Tom Van Woensel Professor Operations Management and Logistics, Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands) and Antwerp Management School, Belgium
Mastering the Supply Chain is one of the few Supply Chain Management books that describes the explanation about the fundamentals of Supply Chain Management as well as how to apply this fundamentals concretely to the level of organization, management and operations.
Mohamed el Ouasghiri Senior lecturer Supply Chain Management, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Mastering the Supply Chain provides an invaluable guide for understanding how decisions are taken or need to be taken when managing the supply chain strategically.
Professor Samir Dani Professor of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Head of Logistics, Marketing, Hospitality and Analytics, University of Huddersfield, UK
Supply Chain Management is known to present a high level of complexity: this discipline brings together many issues. The Fresh Connection does not only include many different types of decisions (purchasing, production, logistics, planning, quality of customer service,...), but there are also complex interactions between them, interactions which strongly influence the final performance.
Christian van Delft Associate Professor Information Systems and Operations Management, Head Logistics and Operations Management Department, Member of CNRS, GREGHEC Research Group, HEC Paris, France
Mastering the Supply Chain is closing the gap by providing a solid theoretical base as well as an immediate practical application through The Fresh Connection business simulation in a very experimental and playful way. It’s an absolute reference on Supply Chain Management for students, professionals, and leaders.
Nicolai Rassolov MSc Lecturer, School of Continuing Studies, McGill University Montreal, Canada
Mastering the Supply Chain offers a unique approach that blends a comprehensive review of the main concepts of supply chain, with plenty of additional references for a more in-depth learning of specific topics.
Claudio Barbieri da Cunha Associate Professor, Head of Department of Transportation Engineering, Director of Center for Innovation in Logistics Systems Engineering (CISLOG), University of São Paulo, Brazil
The title says it all: Mastering the Supply Chain. Not only in theory, but also in practice.
Dr. Stanislav Chankov Lecturer in Supply Chain Management. Department of Mathematics and Logistics, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
The Fresh Connection deals with how to manage a supply chain from multiple perspectives, including business, technology, performance and optimization.
Ms. Wang Xiaofang Director of Lab, Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Supply Chains are comprised of complex interdependent systems and Mastering the Supply Chain ingeniously incorporates knowledge and practice of the essential fundamentals with the Fresh Connection Simulation.
Laura M. Meade, PhD Director of International Programs, Professor Supply Chain Practice, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, USA
Together with The Fresh Connection’s experiential learning environment, this new book, Mastering the Supply Chain, provides the supporting material in a nice condensed, progressive and aligned style.
Johan Louw Associate Professor Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Stellenbosch, University, Stellenbosch, South Africa