Today, it feels like everything has changed—it’s either been closed, postponed, or canceled. Some states have officially shut down. You’re working from home, while watching your kids (and trying to teach them). You haven’t seen or hugged your loved ones in weeks.

Traditionally, the BWE has been studied in serial supply chains. That is also the setting of the famous beer game, where the typical demand pattern across the supply chain looks like this: for a relatively small change in demand seen by the retailer, the demand variability progressively increases at the more upstream wholesaler, distributor, and factory (see the figure below). This leads to capacity shortages, stockouts, excess inventory, and increased operational costs. No wonder BWE has received a lot of attention among academics and practitioners alike.