“I had high hopes with the projects, but I really didn’t expect these tremendous savings,” said Schoenherr.  Lansing-based Peckham, where people with disabilities make clothing and other products, hundreds of thousands of boxes are needed every year to ship the products. But officials at the nonprofit weren’t sure they were getting the best prices on their packaging and didn’t have time to do a full-scale pricing comparison, said Allison Parker, materials manager for Peckham. So earlier this academic year, a team of supply chain students evaluated the market for box suppliers and came back with recommendations that stand to save Peckham as much as $160,000 a year.  The student team identified a significant cost savings and can feel good knowing that it will have a positive impact on many individuals,” Parker said.

At Hope Network, a Grand Rapids-based nonprofit that operates dozens of residential treatment homes across the state, a team of supply chain students in fall 2010 developed a concept for a centrally located “store” at one of Hope’s facilities that would stock nonperishable items such as cleaning supplies and tissue paper. If fully applied, it has the potential to save about $250,000 a year.

From a student perspective, the class – required for supply chain majors – was a refreshing change from the usual bookwork, said Alex Zuellig, who was part of the Hope Network project.  “It was a lot of work,” said Zuellig, who has since graduated and landed a job in the purchasing department of a Chicago-area distributor. “But it was great, because with most class projects you can’t necessarily relate them to what you might be doing in the real world.”

Schoenherr developed the idea for the class through the Lilly Teaching Fellows Program, a yearlong fellowship at MSU that encourages effective practices in teaching. The Lilly program gave him the opportunity to spend several months preparing for the project, including sending out proposals to a host of nonprofits, winnowing the list and meeting with officials from the selected organizations.

For links to Rolls-Royce, please see: http://www.rolls-royce.com/

A team of three students from MSU took second place – Kayla Brenner, Monica Nawrocki and Jason Tan, and their advisor, Associate Professor Bixby Cooper. Teams from The Ohio State University and the University of Dayton took first and third place respectively.

“The students were all able to learn something from the SCODE simulation – what can go wrong and how to balance the results,” says the John H. McConnell Chaired Professor of Business Administration David Closs. “It isn’t about doing one thing best. To be a Supply Chain professional today, you have to balance all of the factors involved, from environmental variables to selecting a global operations strategy and making week-to-week operating decisions for the firm.”

In addition to MSU, undergraduate teams of three to four students from around the country participated from the following colleges: Central Michigan University, University of Dayton, Eastern Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, Marquette University, University of North Florida, Northeastern University, Ohio State University, Portland State University, Rutgers University, University of Texas, Wayne State University and Western Michigan University.

The competition started on March 22, when students were introduced to the SCODE simulation through a simple simulation overview and “training” scenario involving a single manufacturing plant location serving the entire world. Decisions had to be made concerning which suppliers to use and what modes of transportation to use for inbound raw materials. Production had to be scheduled based on a demand forecast, and orders had to be filled involving transportation mode selection. The training scenario ensured that everyone understood the basic simulation, what decisions needed to be made, how to input data, what the output looked like, and how output should be analyzed to make the required decisions.

The actual competition on March 23 was similar but a little more complex: one plant location was given but a second plant location also had to be selected and two products were involved, not just one. Then the decisions that needed to be made were essentially the same types of decisions as in the training scenario, just complicated by the fact that there were two plants, two products, and students had to make assignments of markets to each plant. Other things that were considered included capacity requirements and sourcing strategies. On day two, faculty and sponsors were also invited to a session led by Closs on “Trends in Supply Chain Management” while teams finished their simulations and submitted their results.

Teams were measured on total revenue, order fulfillment, inventory turns and a profit figure the Broad College calls “supply chain contribution.”

It was announced after the competition that the event will be renamed the Bowersox Supply Chain Challenge starting next year to honor the late Professor Emeritus of Supply Chain Management and Marketing at the Broad College Donald Bowersox. Through his 40+ years of service to MSU, Bowersox left a lasting legacy due to his impact on both the academic world and practitioners of Supply Chain Management.

The Broad College would like to thank the following corporate sponsors for making the 2012 MSU Undergraduate Supply Chain Challenge possible: Northrop Grumman, ArcelorMittal, ConocoPhillips, Dow, Ford, GM Foundation, John Deere, Norfolk-Southern and Shell.

Photo caption: (l. to r. back row) Mike Forbes – Northrup Grumman, Associate Professor Bixby Cooper, Mike Pruente – ConocoPhillips, Michelle Braun – GM Foundation, Chuck Doyle – Ford Motor Company and Mike Riba – Shell. (l. to r. front row) Broad students Monica Nawrocki, Jason Tan and Kayla Brenner; Nicole Moyer – ArcelorMittal and Brad Dunkel – ArcelorMittal.

Michigan Campus Compact (MCC) is the state organization of Campus Compact – a national coalition of nearly 1,100 colleges and university presidents which aims to foster community service, service-learning and civic engagement among college students. Every year, each college/university names one outstanding faculty. Schoenherr is the first Broad faculty to receive the award and will be honored on Jan. 30, 2012 at the Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Institute Awards Ceremony and Dinner at the Kellogg Center.

Schoenherr joined the Department of Supply Chain Management in 2008 with a research focus on supply chain management, purchasing, EDP systems, and global manufacturing. His work has been published in many journals including Journal of Business Logistics and International Journal of Production Research. He received his PhD in Operations Management and Decision Sciences from Indiana University.

MSU students Janice Ebert, Blake Jendrusch and Monica Nawrocki were chosen because they exemplified the very best in educational achievement and the future of the supply management profession. Their $1000 scholarship was in addition to a sponsored registration and travel allowance to attend the ISM Services Conference in Phoenix.

ISM Services Group is one of several groups comprised of ISM members with common interests in education and networking in various topics. Members are either in services industries or are supply management professionals who buy services. The Services Group’s University Relations efforts focus on four main areas: mentoring, internships, scholarships and on-site activities. Visit the ISM Services Group online at www.ismservicesgroup.com

For links to UPS or Zappos please see:

UPS – http://www.pressroom.ups.com/Fact+Sheets/UPS+Worldport+Facts

Zappos – http://about.zappos.com/zappos-story/fulfillment-facility

By joining forces, SPJIMR and the Broad College will be better able to develop and deliver the necessary research to create programs and advance projects for the benefit of management and business in India while also developing greater research knowledge, access to resources and a stronger global reach for the Broad College. Through student and faculty collaboration, the goal is to create a center for excellence in management and leadership to research, teach and facilitate leading-edge management practices.

“SPJIMR was recently ranked as one of the top five business schools in India, and their institutional values align well with the land grant and world grant values of MSU,” says David Frayer, director of Broad’s Executive Development Programs. “The opportunity to collaborate on management development will benefit both institutions by providing a true value proposition to industry that neither school could achieve by itself.”

Faculty from both institutions will work together to design and develop an international business presence in India supported by capabilities such as the Broad College’s globalEDGE platform to aid research, entrepreneurship linkages and improved faculty education. In addition, students from both institutions will be part of Masters-level student exchanges between Mumbai and East Lansing. These exchanges will also engage students in joint projects and research as well as work within non-governmental organizations throughout India.

By listening to businesses in India, faculty and students involved in the partnership will help determine their needs, develop a management calendar of open enrollment programs, and establish foundations and governance for centers as well as key programs within organizations. This program will not only expand the reach of the Broad College, but also the depth of information available and the understanding of the increasingly global business community.

“We are particularly fortunate to have SPJIMR as a partner in India,” says Eli and Edythe L. Broad Dean Stefanie Lenway. “We share a similar emphasis on the importance of value based growth and a commitment to provide our students with the skills to promote holistic, systematic thinking while building character.”

Narasimhan

Ram Narasimhan, the John H. McConnell Endowed Professor and University Distinguished Professor in the department of Supply Chain Management, has been appointed senior editor of Production Operations Management Journal, one of the leading journals in Operations Management published by the professional society INFORMS.

Narasimhan has been a professor at the Broad College for over 30 years. His interests are strategic issues in supply chain management encompassing supply chain strategies, strategic sourcing, integration across supply chains, buyer-supplier relationships, empirical modeling of decision linkages to SCM, analytical modeling of supply chain decisions, and theory development in supply chain management. He has over 100 published articles in journals including Decision Sciences, Journal of Operations Management and International Journal of Production Research, and he received his PhD in Management Science from the University of Minnesota.