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Using Inchainge’s self-paced End-to-End Supply Chain Management learning solution, powered by The Fresh Connection, students bring together knowledge from across their Master’s program in an individual final project where they manage a virtual company, make interconnected business decisions, and experience the consequences.

For lecturers Aland Escudero Ornelas, Alix Vargas Lopez and Neil Vaz, the experience provides something increasingly important in the age of AI: the opportunity to look beyond a polished final submission and challenge students on the reasoning behind their decisions, while giving students practical management experience they can take into their careers.

The Challenge: Assessing What Students Really Understand

The University of Hertfordshire wanted a more reliable way to assess Master’s students in manufacturing and supply chain management. With the rapid adoption of generative AI, lecturers were increasingly seeing polished thesis submissions that did not necessarily reflect students’ ability to explain the underlying concepts or apply them in practice.

This created a gap between producing a strong final submission and achieving the intended learning outcomes. The university wanted an approach that could reveal whether students could bring together knowledge from across their Master’s program, think critically about interconnected business decisions, and demonstrate their understanding in a way that could not simply be generated for them.

Career readiness was equally important. Many students had limited management experience, so the final project also needed to give them something practical they could draw on when entering the job market.

The Solution: Turning a Final Project into a Management Experience

The university introduced an individual final project using Inchainge’s self-paced End-to-End Supply Chain Management learning solution, powered by the business game The Fresh Connection.

Across six rounds, students independently managed a virtual fruit juice company and made decisions spanning purchasing, operations, supply chain and sales. They experience how decisions in one area affect performance elsewhere, bringing together concepts they had previously encountered across different modules.

“We want them to behave like managers. That’s the main objective: to give them critical thinking rather than just knowing the concepts. We want them to be leaders.” — Aland Escudero Ornelas, Lecturer in Operation and Manufacturing Management, University of Hertfordshire

For the latest cohort, the university introduced dedicated four-hour classroom sessions. Students had structured time to work through the experience, while lecturers could observe their progress, discuss concepts, ask questions, and challenge their reasoning.

Importantly, students were not assessed on ROI alone. Lecturers looked at the wider learning process: why students made particular decisions, whether they could explain changes in KPIs, how well they understood the connections between functions, and what they would do differently.

“That’s what we assess them on, not the numbers, but the reasoning. Why are they taking the decisions?” — Aland Escudero Ornelas, Lecturer in Operation and Manufacturing Management, University of Hertfordshire

A negative ROI did not automatically mean failure. Students could demonstrate their understanding by explaining what went wrong, defending their decisions, and showing what they had learned, although simulation performance could still influence the level of the final mark.

The approach also proved more resilient to AI. Students initially experimented with using ChatGPT to recommend decisions but quickly discovered that they still needed to understand the business themselves to interpret the results and determine what to do next.

“What I like about The Fresh Connection is that it is AI-resilient. Students quickly discover that ChatGPT cannot make the decisions for them, they have to understand the business and take ownership themselves.”
— Aland Escudero Ornelas, Lecturer in Operation and Manufacturing Management, University of Hertfordshire

The Impact: Deeper Understanding, Stronger Engagement, and Career Readiness

The new approach resulted in clear improvements in how students engaged with the project and demonstrated their understanding:

• Higher engagement and increased attendance: Dedicated classroom sessions increased attendance and gave students structured time to invest in the learning experience.
• Deeper understanding and application: Students became better able to explain their decisions, understand why specific outcomes occurred, and connect KPIs across different business functions.
• Stronger cross-functional thinking: Students experienced first-hand how improving one KPI could negatively affect overall company performance, helping them move beyond individual concepts and understand the business as an interconnected system.
• Improved performance: Average ROI progressed from –7.7% in round one to +3.4% by round six, reflecting the development seen throughout the experience.
• Greater career readiness: Students gained practical management experience they could explain and reflect on in conversations with potential employers.

For the lecturers, one of the clearest changes was the depth of students’ understanding. Compared with the previous approach, where students largely completed their decisions independently at home, they were increasingly able to explain not only what had happened, but why.

“The students really understand the implications of their decisions. They can explain why they made a particular choice, why it produced a specific outcome and what they would do differently next time.”
— Alix Vargas Lopez, Senior Lecturer at University of Hertfordshire

Students experienced first-hand that maximising one operational KPI could negatively affect performance elsewhere. This helped them move from understanding concepts in isolation to recognising the relationships between different functions and considering the wider consequences of their decisions.

The improvement was also visible across the simulation rounds, with average ROI progressing from –7.7% in the first round to +3.4% by round six. While ROI was not the sole basis for assessment, the progression supported what lecturers were observing in the classroom: students were becoming more engaged and developing a stronger understanding of the business.

“Students learned that it’s not only about achieving a positive ROI. Even when their results were negative, they could look at what happened, understand why, and learn from their decisions.” — Neil Vaz, Lecturer in Manufacturing Technology, University of Hertfordshire

The experience also gives students something tangible to take beyond the classroom. Many enter the program with limited management experience; after completing the project, they can discuss managing a simulated company, the decisions they made, the consequences they experienced, and what they learned.

“Now, when students go to job interviews, they have something meaningful to talk about. They can say, ‘I managed a simulated fruit juice company,’ and explain the decisions they made.”
— Aland Escudero Ornelas, Lecturer in Operation and Manufacturing Management, University of Hertfordshire

By combining End-to-End Supply Chain Management with dedicated classroom time and educator-led questioning, the University of Hertfordshire has created a more authentic, AI-resilient approach to thesis assessment; one that gives educators clearer evidence of genuine understanding while helping students develop the critical thinking and practical perspective they need for their careers.

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