Leading corporations value operations expertise provided by Tauber Institute

Ann Arbor, MI – The 2022 Tauber Team Projects resulted in $1.03 billion in savings according to sponsoring company calculations, an average of $49 million per project over three years. Each summer, teams of Tauber Institute business + engineering graduate students work for sponsoring companies to address tough operations challenges, uncover significant savings, and champion major improvements in areas such as data analytics, sustainability, supply chain, and strategy – then return to the University of Michigan and present their results to operations leaders at the SPOTLIGHT! Team Project Showcase and Scholarship Competition.

Since 1993, over a hundred different companies have sponsored Tauber team projects. During their projects, Tauber students experience unparalleled access to the inner workings of top global firms, combined with the expert support of the Michigan Ross School of Business and Michigan Engineering faculty who serve as project advisors, and guidance from Tauber co-directors, communications coaches, research librarians, and a network of alumni mentors. Check out the challenges addressed by four of the twenty-one project teams who are presenting at SPOTLIGHT! 2022 on September 16 – AIP Energy, Boeing Configuration, General Motors, and Microsoft:

AIP Energy

The Tauber student team of Joshua Kowalski (EGL BSE-DataScience/MSE-IOE), Daniel Rodriguez (MSE-IOE), and Hitoshi Fuchigami (MBA) worked for GD Energy Products, a portfolio company of AIP, to decrease excess and obsolete inventory, increase availability and decrease stocking costs of fluid ends, and develop supply chain metrics to better grade performance. The Tauber team worked to develop an inventory management strategy to help GDEP sustain its customer service levels while significantly reducing its working capital tied to inventory.

Boeing Configuration

Boeing Commercial Airplanes seeks to transition from their current, legacy Product Lifecycle Management over to a new, model-based engineering software. The Tauber student team of Matt Howard (EGL BSE/MSE-IOE) and Joey Shoyer (EGL BSE-CSE/MSE-IOE) investigated internally within Boeing teams and throughout adjacent industries to report on possible risks and opportunities associated with large-scale system transitions and provided recommendations to assist with a successful integration to maintain Boeing's status as an industry leader of engineering innovation.

General Motors

The Tauber student team of Harsh Hegde (MSE-IOE) and Shunsuke Koyama (MBA) evaluated the use of computer vision, artificial intelligence, and laser/radar technologies for safeguards on automated cells in manufacturing. The use of new technologies has the potential to simplify setup, improve human-machine collaboration and avoid the associated downtime when humans are inside the range of a robot motion either by entering a fenced cell or breaking electronic guards.

Microsoft

The Modern Work Customer Success Unit within Microsoft's Connected Customer Experience focuses on Microsoft’s M365 Commercial Products to help deliver a differentiated end-to-end customer experience. The Tauber student team of Amit Tiwari (EGL BSE/MSE-IOE) and Ryo Yoshikawa (MBA) focused on understanding current business processes, orchestration flows, and measurement principles with goals to create and/or update customer journey maps and identify key activities aligned to Modern Work business priorities; and to suggest effective measures for monitoring, controlling, and/or improvements to the processes.

"The students love this event, the faculty love this event, the sponsors love this event, and the judges really love this event!"

Explore SPOTLIGHT! 2022

The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and Michigan 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 tauber.umich.edu.