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Explore our press releases, feature articles, and announcements about Tauber students, speakers, team projects, and events.
2018 Spotlight! Team Project Showcase
Ann Arbor, MI - Innovative solutions for operations challenges take center stage at the Tauber Institute's 2018 Spotlight! Team Project Showcase and Scholarship Competition, September 14 at the Ann Arbor Sheraton. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Tauber Institute for Global Operations, a pioneer in interdisciplinary action-based learning for business and engineering graduate students at the University of Michigan.
The annual Spotlight! event is a competitive presentation of operations solutions developed by Tauber Institute student teams during their 14-week team projects at top companies across the U.S. and around the world. At Spotlight!, the institute's interdisicpinary teams of business and engineering students showcase their project results and compete for $40,000 in academic scholarships.
The Tauber Institute’s 2018 team project sponsors are leaders in a wide range of industries, including aerospace, internet commerce, high tech, health care, financial, automotive, energy, and retail. The institute is pleased to strengthen relationships with 15 continuing sponsors – Amazon, Boeing, BorgWarner, Cummins, Dow, Ford, Fresenius, General Mills, GM, Microsoft, Pepsi, PG&E, Stanley Black & Decker, Target, and Whirlpool – and excited to form partnerships this year with 5 new sponsors: IDEX, Mayo Clinic, Principal Financial, Spacelabs, and Stoneridge.
View student pictures on-site at sponsoring companies.
Read summaries of 2018 Tauber team projects.
Tauber student teams worked for their sponsors from May through August to find solutions for substantive operations challenges. Solutions may include lean process design and implementation, machine learning and advanced analytics, strategic sourcing, inventory management, logistics, and new product development. Tauber team projects provide a significant monetary return on a sponsor’s investment, as well as improvements in areas such as energy consumption, waste reduction, throughput time, and supply chain risk. According to initial sponsoring company calculations, the 2018 Tauber team projects resulted in $564 million in cost savings and additional revenue generation. Per project saving and revenue generation was more than $28M (19 projects out of 30 are present in the currently reported values).
While working on their Tauber team projects, each 2-3 person Tauber Institute student team is supported by executive direction from their sponsoring firm, the expertise of both a College of Engineering and a Ross School of Business faculty advisor, and supervision by a Tauber Institute Co-Director. The Tauber Alumni Network provides additional mentorship and networking opportunities for students at their team project locations.
Keep up-to-date on Tauber team projects by following @umtauber on Twitter or Facebook.
Apply to sponsor a team project.
Contact: Theresa Ceccarelli, Marketing Manager /[email protected] / 734-647-0308
The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering, working together with industry partners to facilitate cross-disciplinary education in global operations management. The Tauber Institute is an inaugural recipient of the UPS George D. Smith Prize for effective and innovative preparation of students to be good practitioners of operations research, management science, or analytics. For more information visit www.tauber.umich.edu.
