About the teaching case

Dive into the online business game ‘The Blue Connection’ together with your students for a case study on introducing circularity into supply chains. In ‘The Blue Connection’, students take on the role of ‘circular turnaround manager’ and are asked to improve the circularity in the value chain. Accompanied by a Harvard-style Teaching Case, students are faced with a supply chain challenge: an e-bike manufacturer that wants to modify its linear supply chain to become more circular. Eventually, the goal of this game is to come up with possibilities to optimize the circularity in this company.

Students need to brainstorm about circular flows and actions based on known business models. The learning outcome is for students to have an understanding of the principles of circular supply chain management.

WHAT WILL STUDENT LEARN?

This case is designed for Circular Supply Chain modules and suitable for supply chain courses. During the case, students are challenged to learn:

  • Which steps a company could take in order to become circular
  • Which circular flows and activities could be implemented in certain scenarios
  • Which circular flows and activities could be implemented in certain scenarios
  • Which accompanying business models can support a circular supply chain
WHAT'S INCLUDED?

What’s included in this FREE online teaching case?

  • Harvard-style Teaching Case on implementing circularity into supply chain management
  • Class discussion points
  • Introduction video about ‘The Blue Connection’
  • Access for both students and teachers to the interactive online game ‘The Blue Connection’
  • Comprehensive teaching notes

Meet the authors

Ed Weenk, EngD

Freelance professional: Supply Chain | Consulting | Business Gaming | Training

QuSL

Senior Lecturer

Maastricht School of Management

Senior associate professor

EADA Business School Barcelona

My professional passions are sustainable operations & supply chain, managers & management, projects & project management, training & teaching and business simulations & experiential learning.

My latest book, “Mastering the circular economy. A practical approach to the circular business model transformation”, was published in May 2021 by Kogan Page. Previous books are “Mastering the Supply Chain. Principles, practice and real-life applications” from 2019, available in English and Dutch and “The Perfect Pass. What the manager can learn from the football trainer”, from 2012, published in Dutch, English and Spanish.