The University of Michigan’s Tauber Institute for Global Operations will announce the projects sponsored by global firms at Tauber’s annual Team Project Kickoff Dinner at the Ross School of Business.  Business and engineering student teams will meet with faculty co-advisors from Ross and from the College of Engineering to brainstorm innovative approaches to the challenges posed by their sponsoring companies. 

A signature initiative of the Tauber Institute, team projects pair exceptional students with top companies for a 14-week multidisciplinary, collaborative project.  Each 2-3 person project team is comprised of Master of Engineering and/or Master of Business Administration.  Along with executive direction from the sponsoring firm, each team receives support from both a College of Engineering and a Ross School of Business faculty advisor, and supervision by a Tauber Institute Co-Director. Each team will be assigned to a Tauber alum from their sponsoring company to provide mentoring support.

Tauber student teams work on-site at their sponsoring company from May through August to find solutions for substantive operations challenges. Solutions may include lean process design and implementation, manufacturing site strategic assessment, sourcing plans, inventory management, logistics, and new product development. Tauber team projects provide a significant return on a sponsor’s investment – often uncovering millions of dollars of savings – as well as improvements in areas such as CO2 emissions, energy consumption, throughput time, and supply chain risk.

Keep up-to-date on this year’s team projects by following @umtauber on Twitter or Facebook.