Tauber students present solutions worth $1.03B at SPOTLIGHT! 2022

Ann Arbor, MI – This Friday we will hear how 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.

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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 three of the twenty-one project teams who are presenting at SPOTLIGHT! 2022 on September 16 – Gopuff Network, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, and Pfizer UK:

Gopuff Network

Gopuff is a delivery service that provides everyday essentials to customers within minutes across the United States and Europe. The Tauber student team of Tarek El Bsat (BSE/MSE-IOE), Grace Kenney (MBA), and Artemis Siavelis (EGL BSE-CSE/MSE-IOE) was tasked to develop a go-forward network design strategy for Gopuff using forecasted growth. The team recommended using the framework they developed to build an in-house solution for network topology, making it more flexible and able to track more granularity.

National Center for Manufacturing Sciences

The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) is an organization that facilitates the demonstration and adoption of innovative technologies into the US manufacturing base. Because of the complexities of technology today and the disparate needs of its end users, it is difficult to predict which technologies are likely to succeed. To this end, NCMS engaged the Tauber team of Braden Crimmins (BSE/MSE-CSE) and Katie Wells (MBA) to construct a predictive model for assessing a technology's likelihood for success.

Pfizer UK

The Sandwich Solid Dose Manufacturing (SDM) site in the UK is one of Pfizer’s leading R&D facilities worldwide, enabling the company’s objective of bringing 25 new products to market by 2025. A key challenge in achieving this goal is improving clinical supply schedule adherence, which has been impacted by equipment breakdown issues, causing disruptions of planned tasks and downstream activities. The Tauber team of Kris Ivanov (MBA) and Jeremy Segal (EGL BSE/MSE-IOE) was tasked with developing strategies, piloting solutions, and delivering recommendations for a future state operating model where unplanned downtime is significantly reduced, supporting Pfizer’s mission of delivering breakthroughs that change patients’ lives.

"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.