The solar pv industry simulation

Solar PV Industry Simulation

Understanding business process, budgeting, market share, gross revenue, net profit and a number

of other financial issues is imperative as an MBA graduate. In this Management Information

Systems (MIS) course we expose you to this in a live web-based simulation called “Eclipsing the

Competition: The Solar PV Industry Simulation”, from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

In this simulation you will play the role of senior management at SunPower, a leading firm in the

solar photovoltaic industry. The game simulates the solar PV industry where users compete

against other firms, simulated by the computer, and set the industry conditions so as to learn

about strategy under different conditions relating to learning, knowledge spillovers, and

competitor behavior.

Reivew this video https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/simulations/solar/Pages/Video.aspx

Then click on this link Solar PV Simulator to get to the MIT Sloan Simulation page for the Solar

PV Simulator. You will be playing as an individual so be sure click the “Play as an individual”

button after you hit the “Play Simulator” button.

The screen ID should be your First and Last name.

Objective:

The goal here is for EACH member of your team to try different scenarios in different years to

ultimately come up with the best market share, the best revenue and best profits for your

company. In the end we’re going to see which team comes up with the best plan! Yes, you are

competing against each other…..we’ll see who has the best results when this exercise is over.

General:

As you try different scenarios, take notes and screen shots that you can post to your group link

and share with the group members. Each student should have at least one, probably more posts.

You may run this simulator multiple times until you’re comfortable with what you achieved.

What’s the best approach? The best way to do this is for each student to try the simulator,

making notes as you go thru the simulator each year. Now go back into the simulator and try

some new scenarios. The simulator ends after 18 years of running so be sure to go through and

do all 18 years.

Obviously, someone on your team will come up with the best numbers, others will be close,

some may be way off. At this point it doesn’t matter if you did the best for your team or the

worse, what does matter is that you tried and that you have something on the discussion board to

prove it. AND, the real question here is has you team come up with best scenario as compared to

all the other teams in the class that you’re competing against.

Deliverables:

By Wednesday night of the week assigned, each student will have completed the task above,

running the simulator through a variety of scenarios and posting the results to the group

discussion board.

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/simulations/solar/Pages/Video.aspx
https://mitsloan.mit.edu/LearningEdge/simulations/solar/Pages/default.aspx
By Friday night of the week assigned create a group power point presentation (PPT) and post this

to your group Discussion Board, naming it GroupXX-Final PPT. The PPT will include the

following:

1. First slide, Group # and list of participants. Nonparticipants name needs to be in red type

2. One slide of each student’s best result. 8 students on the team, 8 slides. Be sure to include the student name on each slide. If a student did not participate, put in a blank slide with

their name on it.

3. A slide showing the scenario the team chose to go with outlining the steps you took to achieve your final results.

4. Research and cite sources on things like market share and what that means to your company, emissions saved, annual revenue’s versus cost of goods sold, annual net

income and NPV……in general a little research and discussion on an income statement,

what is it and what does it mean to your company. You many also discuss any other thing

that caught your attention.

5. As a group, discuss how you might use a simulator like this in real-life, if for example you were running a business like this.

6. Refer to chapter 2 of the book: If you were setting up a new business like this, what kind of systems would you use? MIS, DSS, EIS, ERP, Cloud?

7. Refer to chapter 3 of the book: How might you use Data Analytics, BI, etc. in this business.

8. Any closing comments

In sections 4, 5, 6 and 7 above the group should assign work to each student and each student

should come up with 2 -3 slides for this. Therefore, the entire presentation should easily be 20+

slides.

9. After posting your group PPT to the group Discussion Board on Friday night, naming it GroupXX-Final PPT as outlined above, post this same file to the Group Assignment

Solar PV submission link as well as the General Discussion Board for Solar PPTs so that

ALL students in the class have access to it. This needs to be done by Friday night so that

the following can be accomplished.

10. By Sunday night of the week assigned everyone should have looked at the posted PPTs and commented on at least one other group (not your own).