Spring 2019 Innovation & Leadership Showcase: Supply Chain Teams
MBA Supply Chain Projects
An Integrated Supply Chain Risk Prediction Model Using Markov Decision Process and Multi Criteria Supplier Selection Techniques
Corporate Sponsor: Siemens
Course: MBA 549 Supply Chain Practicum (Fall 2018 and Spring 2019)
Course Instructor and Advisor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: Srinivasan Balan
Project Summary: In this project, A 2-phase approach was developed to draw insights about supply chain risks and develop a solution to mitigate disruption before the event occur. In the first phase, the supply chain risk data is visualized using a BI tool. In the second phase, the problem was formulated as a Markov Decision Process that maximizes the expected long run revenue induced by supply chain risks. One of the actions is to find the best performing supplier from results of MDP using multi-criteria decision-making methods. We implemented the model in a global building controls organization, which illustrates risk prediction model usage and evaluation of best supplier selection model.
Red Cross Travel Benchmark Project
Corporate Sponsor: American Red Cross
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Craig Demarest
Team Members: Nahush Arankar, Bharat Kulkarni, Ritu Mehta, Corey B. Young
Project Summary: The American Red Cross is dedicated to serving people in need by providing disaster relief in the United States and around the world. As such, travel is an essential requirement for successful operations. Therefore, a full understanding of travel operations in related industries is vital. The team will provide a clear understanding of industry “best practices” for similar sized organizations in related industries to enable the American Red Cross to use its donations as efficiently as possible to maximize their impact while building and maintaining good faith with their donor base.The American Red Cross is dedicated to serving people in need by providing disaster relief in the United States and around the world. As such, travel is an essential requirement for successful operations. Therefore, a full understanding of travel operations in related industries is vital. The team will provide a clear understanding of industry “best practices” for similar sized organizations in related industries to enable the American Red Cross to use its donations as efficiently as possible to maximize their impact while building and maintaining good faith with their donor base.
Biogen: Total Cost to Serve
Corporate Sponsor: Biogen
Course: MBA 549 Supply Chain Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Betty Minton
Team Members: Peter Kim, Suraj Addagarla, Thomas Weadon, William Morrison
Project Summary: Biogen focuses on developing breakthrough treatments for neurological conditions. Currently, it has low transparency of specific cost allocations to capitalized inventory. This phase of Biogen’s total cost to serve (TCS) effort required development of a model to identify and prioritize costs of goods sold (CoGS) components for the application of cost control. Additionally, Biogen required a repeatable, iterative process to ease transition to Biogen staff at the conclusion of this project.
American Red Cross Cell Phone Policy Benchmarking
Corporate Sponsor: American Red Cross
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Craig Weeks
Team Members: Sara Sonderman, Gretchen Grajales, Trevor Roberts, Bhagyalakshmi Vijayalakshmi Shrikrishna
Project Summary: The American Red Cross tasked the project team with improving their mobile device policy and aligning it with industry best practices. The mobile device policy costs of rules, specifications, and information around the management of mobile devices (company owned cell phones) used for business. The team conducted market research and collected mobile device policies from eight large corporations across a variety of industries including manufacturing, healthcare, utilities, and finance. Based on the research, the team developed a recommendation on how the American Red Cross should restructure their policy match industry standards and to help mitigate risk as well as provide significant cost savings.
Merck Bottles Capacity Optimization
Corporate Sponsor: Merck
Course: MBA 549 Supply Chain Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Betty Minton
Team Members: Casey Huss, Lavanya K G, Ritu Mehta, Parth Shah
Project Summary: The Merck Wilson Packaging plant is Merck’s largest packaging operation globally. Merck faces a demand bulge for bottled product before the volume is predicted to drop off. Merck must find a way to improve operations to optimize throughput on its current equipment without adding new lines. Our analysis will include a deep dive into the current state of the changeover process –– the leading cause of production down time for the operations. Additionally, we will investigate run rate of current operations versus operational standards to identify the top three savings opportunities for all lines.
UPS Supply Chain Solutions: Missing Data
Corporate Sponsor: United Parcel Service Supply Chain Solutions
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Carol Kozar
Team Members: Dan Savas, Sourabh Agrawal, Pranab Deepak, Parth Gunjal, Abram Rodd
Project Summary: UPS Supply Chain Solutions (SCS) relies on client data to provide proposal and pricing for third party logistics services. Missing data impacts the development of competitive pricing solutions. SCS relies on assumptions to fill in the gaps. Utilizing SCS data sets, the team analyzed shipment, order profile, and variability trends for SCS Finished Goods and Healthcare warehouse customers. Using this analysis, the team developed a solution to impute missing data that improves order profile prediction and reduces variability in the pricing proposal process.
Unauthorized Subcontracting and Forced Labor in the Apparel Industry in India and Bangladesh
Corporate Sponsor: Global Fund to End Modern Slavery
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Summer 2019)
Course Instructor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: John Zapko
Team Members: Sahir Patel, Penny Kouloglou, Sulatana Islam, Aayush Khandelwal
Project Summary: The fast-fashion industry demands faster delivery times and low production costs from the garment manufacturers, which forces them to engage in unethical business practices. Our project focuses on developing an audit tool that western apparel brands can use to determine the possibility of unauthorized subcontracting by their Tier 1 supplier base. We also created a prioritized list of Indicators that determine the possibility of forced labor by the sub-tier factories.
Restaurant Supply Chain Solutions (RSCS) Optimization of Beef Production
Corporate Sponsor: Restaurant Supply Chain Solutions (RSCS)
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Walter DeGrange
Team Members: Bhoomi Ranpariya, Rakesh Pandian Thangaraju, Pratik Jain, Shahid Akbar
Project Summary: Restaurant Supply Chain Solutions, LLC (RSCS) is the exclusive supply chain management organization for Yum! Brands, Inc. and its three restaurant systems. Currently, the beef cooking process in RSCS is using 65% lean point to make specific output of final meet product. RSCS goal is to investigate whether changing to different lean pint would yield any cost productivity benefits. Project scope is to look at different lean point and various relationship between inputs and arrive at total cost.
Data Center Group (DCG) Supply Chain Executive Dashboard
Corporate Sponsor: Lenovo Data Center Group
Course: MBA 549 Supply Chain Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Tracy Freeman
Team Members: Sultana Islam, Sukrut Konde, Ashutosh Upadhyay, Shane Whitten
Project Summary: Lenovo Data Center Group desires to develop an online interactive one or two-page dashboard. The purpose of the dashboard is to communicate KPIs for decision making and driving improvement. In order to design an effective dashboard for the client, the team gathered and analyzed necessary KPIs through interviews with supply chain executives, identification of gaps between current KPIs, and determined essential metrics to accurately represent the company’s current supply chain process status.
UPS KPI and Benchmarking Tool
Corporate Sponsor: UPS
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: John Zapko
Team Members: Sahithi Chityala, Badri Yashwant Kuram, Brian Pezzulo, Sterling Riggs, Tejaswini Sharma
Project Summary: UPS is seeking to compare customer’s current processes or performance to that of a best-in-class company. Our project focused on developing a bench-marking tool for the UPS sales teams that would enable them to compare a customer’s selected KPIs with industry benchmarks to demonstrate potential business improvements and opportunities. We researched and established a set of key financial and operational metrics and benchmarks for three industries. We created a tool that compares the KPI set against the benchmarks and shows a visual representation of how the company is performing.
Altria Strategic Supplier Dashboards
Corporate Sponsor: Altria
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Tom Donahue
Team Members: Amanda Lee, Nicole Hensley, Greg Stryker, Prerana Rao, Dilip Raju, Ashish Burugpalli, Adenike Adeyemi
Project Summary: We partnered with Altria, a consumer goods manufacturer, to create an interactive supplier dashboard to enable better short and long term decision-making. We collected data to determine fields for 30 direct and indirect suppliers. Altria’s vision is a live dashboard containing information on suppliers so they can strategically manage performance and capabilities. We built the dashboard using Tableau, incorporating key fields and created a detailed instructional guide to facilitate understanding of how to create/use the dashboard.
Inside Generation Z
Corporate Sponsor: VF Corporation
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tom Donahue
Course Advisor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: Montica Sawant, Jared Canady, Carlos Monreal Orla
Project Summary: Generation Z will make up 20% of the workforce by 2020. With an emerging younger consumer base, VF wants to research how to best reach this audience through to understand the “why” behind advertising preferences and shopping behaviors. Our goal is to determine this “why” through in-depth qualitative research consisting of in-depth one-on-one interviews. Through our insights, we will provide meaningful and insightful recommendations on how VF can reach this audience in the future. From the research findings, the team will design a survey which can be used for further quantitative research.
Lenovo Data Management
Corporate Sponsor: Lenovo
Course: MBA 549 Supply Chain Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Carol Kozar
Team Members: Marguerite Murray, Michael Mason, Vani Aparna Peri, Sourabh Agrawal
Project Summary: Lenovo is in the process of implementing a 2-3 year plan to digitally transform its end-to-end supply chain and at the same time create more customer centric business solutions and explore new business opportunities. It plans to do this by leveraging emerging technologies like AI, Blockchain, Advanced Analytics and IoT. Focusing on the procurement process, we have tried to understand how information flows from one stakeholder to another, identifying the pain points and information gaps in the process and addressing them to efficiently integrate IBM Watson (AI) in the whole process.
Smallwares Distribution Cost Reduction
Corporate Sponsor: Restaurant Supply Chain Solutions
Course: MBA 549 Supply Chain Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: John Zapko
Team Members: MaryBeth Duprey, Frederick Hersey, Aniket Karne, Eric Riha
Project Summary: The Restaurant Supply Chain Solutions Smallwares Distribution Cost Reduction Kaizen is a collaborative effort utilizing data analysis to define optimum cost savings solutions to reduce supplier markup and optimize spend within the distribution portfolio.
Analysis of Lead Logistics Provider Services (LLP) in the Healthcare Industry
Corporate Sponsor: United Parcel Service(UPS)
Course: MBA 541 Supply Management (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Robert Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Tom Donahue
Team Members: Nikhil Singh, Sean Duparc, Jeffrey Cannon, Ankit Shah, Vinay Kumar
Project Summary: UPS’ Global Logistics & Distribution Group has an interest in the market potential of becoming a Lead Logistics Provider (LLP) for the healthcare industry. Our team is providing industry insight to enable UPS to enter the market as well as their competitive positioning. To accomplish this, we conducted a comprehensive understanding of the capabilities an LLP needs to provide healthcare clients as well as an environmental scan of current providers. This provided UPS insight into gaps within their existing capabilities as well as strengths they could leverage.
Procurement Modernization Trends
Corporate Sponsor: Lenovo
Course: MBA 549 Supply Chain Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor and Advisor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: Dana Lanner, Sahithi Chityala, Yashwant Kuram
Project Summary: Our project is directed toward a company that is a leader in providing innovative consumer, commercial, and enterprise technology that is in the process of a supply chain transformation. As part of the transformation effort, it is useful to understand more about modernization trends in procurement and assess which may be beneficial toward the transformation efforts.The goal of these efforts are to improve efficiency, by reducing bottlenecks and inaccuracies throughout the process and by creating transparency and access to data across the system.
Undergraduate Supply Chain Projects
CTR/CPR Invoice Process Automation
Corporate Sponsor: Duke Energy
Course: BUS 479 Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Betty Minton
Team Members: Caroline Steadman, Michael Ames, Brandon Makovicka, Alexander Mentzer
Project Summary: Duke Energy leverages external companies for labor services across various organizations. In many cases, contractors complete work and invoice for payment by submitting them digitally to the associated organization within Duke Energy. The process is intended to be a more efficient method for submitting payment requests for Duke Energy and the contract companies. However, there is concern that it is actually increasing the time it takes to request and receive payment, adding costs to the process.
CFO-Supply Management Dashboard
Corporate Sponsor: American Red Cross
Course: BUS 479 Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Course Advisor: Betty Minton
Team Members: Conner Phillips, Alec Snipes, Greg Grabert
Project Summary: The American Red Cross is a non-profit humanitarian organization committed to combat human suffering in times of emergencies. Currently the supply network is the Red Cross’ second largest expense and nearly half of the organization’s revenue goes to supporting it. The American Red Cross CFO doesn’t have readily available access to key performance indicators (KPI’s) for supply management. They want to create a CFO supply management dashboard that displays KPI’s in real time by integrating data from key tools where the data already resides.
Leading Supplier Audit Practices
Corporate Sponsor: American Red Cross
Course: BUS 479 Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor and Advisor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: Rebecca Goheen, Sydney Spring, Shouxuan (Kris) Zhang
Project Summary: The American Red Cross is seeking a ‘One Red Cross’ supplier audit process that can be used across each of their three business divisions (Blood, Humanitarian, and Training). This process will be developed through key stakeholder interviews, database research on leading audit practices, and conversations with business professionals across a wide array of industries. This new supplier audit process will result in audit cost savings, optimization of resources, and improved identification of areas of risk.
Lenovo BON Project
Corporate Sponsor: Lenovo
Course: BUS 479 Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor and Advisor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: Grayson Campanaro, Michele Han, Merna Rezk, Ankit Shah, Aishwarya Sharanappa
Project Summary: Lenovo Data Center Group’s (DCG) build out number (BON) process locks down final volumes for servers that are approaching their end of life (EOL). The servers and their component/sub-component parts are numerous and divided based on varying geographies and their classification of being unique or standard. Managing this process is manual, time-consuming, and costly if not completed correctly. Our project deals with revising their current BMS and mapping out their end to end process.
Distribution Order Center Analytics
Corporate Sponsor: Advance Auto Parts
Course: BUS 479 Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor and Advisor: Tracy Freeman, Teaching Assistant Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: Matt Birkner, Jensen Martin, Philip Kowalski
Project Summary: Advance Auto Parts is looking for a way to reduce their unconstrained fill rate in their stores. Unconstrained fill rate being below target hurts sales in stores through not having the customer’s product in stock. For Advance Auto Parts, a dive into the data using modern business analytics will bring insights as to what category of product (A, B, C) is being fulfilled, how different metrics are correlated and ultimately, how Advance Auto Parts can improve their fill rates so they can meet their customer’s needs.
MetLife Global Procurement Practicum
Corporate Sponsor: MetLife
Course: BUS 479 Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor and Advisor: Irene Marnell, Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: David Kusnitz, Alan Jimenez, Andrew Sebastiani
Project Summary: MetLife Global Procurement and Treasury teams are working in partnership with NC State University Practicum team to analyze its supplier network in the Asian region. The goal of this project is to create a baseline data set that explains what services MetLife is buying, how much of the service they are buying, and how much they are paying for the services. This baseline set we created has then been initially analyzed to quantify potential opportunities for supplier network simplification and cost reductions.
Advance Auto Parts Outbound Shipment Volume Forecast
Corporate Sponsor: Advance Auto Parts
Course: BUS 479 Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Practicum (Spring 2019)
Course Instructor and Advisor: Irene Marnell, Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management
Team Members: Wilson Gu, Trevor Oestereich, Atman Vachhani, Anton Lima
Project Summary: Our team worked with Advance Auto Parts to develop a method of forecasting outbound shipments from their distribution centers to their retail locations. We were provided with an existing demand forecast along with shipment data for the same periods, and developed a plan to create an applicable forecast for the distribution centers to utilize.