Whitman Supply Chain Management Students Helping Syracuse University “Fast Forward”

More than a dozen Whitman supply chain management graduate students are working on projects designed to help Syracuse University improve its sourcing processes, which could generate cost savings and create more effective purchasing processes for campus users. The projects engage students as part of the Operational Excellence Program under Fast Forward Syracuse, a University-wide initiative that involves three inter-related components: an Academic Strategic Plan laying out a common vision for Syracuse and clear academic priorities needed to achieve that vision, a Campus Master Plan to provide a framework for our University’s infrastructure needs, and an Operational Excellence program to help support and fund these investments and the pursuit of our overall objectives.

The Operational Excellence Program helps the University develop more effective business processes, achieve campus-wide efficiencies, and create opportunities to fund investment in the Strategic Plan and the Campus Master Plan. Under Operational Excellence, the University is evaluating opportunities to deliver better levels of service to students, faculty and staff to improve the overall effectiveness of the University.

“The projects on which the supply chain management students are working have two goals,” said Patrick Penfield, professor of practice in supply chain  management and director of executive education at the Whitman School. “We are helping the University save money and improve its processes, and the students have the benefit of valuable experiential learning, solving real-world challenges.”

The five projects all involve identifying more streamlined processes for requesting proposals for high-cost commodities, such as computers, lab supplies, and software and license fees. The students are outlining potential cost-savings using the principle of economies of scale to identify ways to consolidate spending in these categories.

“The leading reason I chose the Whitman School is its emphasis on experiential learning,” said Cory Sanderson ’15, an M.S. in supply chain management candidate. “This sourcing project has been an excellent source of exposure to how businesses operate on the ground.”

Sanderson said the students are comparing pricing for licensing agreements for software the entire campus uses. He added that they are reviewing the possibility of consolidating service providers for a variety of website maintenance and development functions, which could provide the University with a higher level of transparency to the details of its annual spend on these services, as well as reduce the overhead of administrating the contracts for these services.

“If, for example, all the schools and colleges that needed a certain kind of software used the same web-based platform, the University could save a great deal of money,” said Penfield. “So the students are looking into that to see if that makes sense and, if so, how to make that happen in the most efficient way.”

The students presented their findings in a business case format to the Operational Excellence Steering Committee members on April 27. Results of the analysis from all teams included savings opportunities and/or process insights and recommendations, as well as next steps. Even though the students have finished their class project, the work doesn’t stop there. Going forward, initiative teams will complete any remaining analysis and develop formal recommendations for the University, which will be presented to the Executive Committee over the next three to four months.

“It has been a pleasure working with the students. Their fresh perspectives and skills have been incredibly valuable to these initiatives. We look forward to launching additional sourcing initiatives with student teams in the 2015-16 academic year,” said Verda Blythe, director of operational excellence.

Pictured are (first row, left to right) Anne Flaherty, Verda Blythe, Chengyi Xu, Jianfeng Wang, Chaozi Tan, Yao Wang, Ankur Bahri, Liyuan Yu, Yuou Song, Yang Wang and Dinesh Ganesan; (back row, left to right) Chong Chen, HongHao Huang, Yao Liu, Patrick Penfield, Shuo Wang and Cory Sanderson

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Kerri Howell

Kerri is director of communications and media relations for the Whitman School. She is responsible for managing all internal and external communications with students, faculty, staff, alumni, members of the business community and other key stakeholders.After receiving her B.A. from State University of New York at Geneseo, she went on to earn her M.S. in communications management from Syracuse’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where she has served as an adjunct professor in the public relations department since 2004.