Unleashing Ideation

At Boeing's Commercial Airplanes unit in Seattle, the Tauber project team developed a procurement strategy that saves over 40% on the cost of fasteners for sub-tier suppliers.

This fall on Sept. 18, student teams from U-M's Tauber Institute for Global Operations will unveil innovative project solutions before a panel of judges at the Institute's annual Spotlight! competition and vie for scholarship awards. The daylong event, which will be held at the Four Points Sheraton in Ann Arbor, marks the culmination of the Institute's 14-week Team Projects and the unleashing of ideation that can help advance industries at home and abroad.

Tauber's program teams up MBAs and master in Supply Chain Management (MCSM) students from the Ross School of Business with graduate students from the U-M College of Engineering who apply their respective business acumen, engineering know-how and leadership capabilities to operations-related corporate conundrums. Projects customarily focus on international supply-chains, inventory management, plant operations and asset management. Teams generate recommendations for improved efficiency and substantial cost savings for sponsors, such as The Boeing Company, Steelcase Inc., Dell Inc., BorgWarner and Intel Corporation.

"On average, the results from these team projects save companies between $1 million and $50 million by streamlining their operations," says Paula Baker, Tauber's marketing and alumni manager. "In addition, firms have a hands-on opportunity to engage and recruit students from business and engineering."

The scope of Tauber team projects is often broad-based and amazingly complex. One team, for example, analyzed energy utilization at United Parcel Service, Inc.'s (UPS's) Worldport shipping hub in Louisville, Kentucky, which is located adjacent to a waste recycling and disposal facility that produces methane gas. After conducting a feasibility study, the students recommended that UPS install a combustion turbine that could use the landfill gas to generate electricity for powering its operations. They estimated a 5.86-year payback period with a 20-year net present value exceeding $7.26 million. In addition, the resulting reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions would be equal to taking 3,125 UPS delivery trucks off the road.

This summer a three-person Tauber team is working on an energy-conservation project at Exide Technologies' Kansas City Industrial Battery manufacturing facility. The students expect their project to identify ways to reduce energy costs by $100,000 or more per year at the operation. If successful, Exide plans to introduce comparable cost-saving processes at its other manufacturing sites world-wide.

"What's interesting about Tauber's program is that students actually perform work that adds value to their industrial partners and at the same time show their skills to potential employers," says Exide's Joe Preuth, vice president of operations, Industrial Energy Americas.

More information, contact: Maureen Shannon at mbsth@umich.edu or (734) 647-2220.

Or visit the Tauber Institute's Web site at http://www.tauber.umich.edu/Corporate%20Partners/index.htm