News
Welcome to Tauber Institute for Global Operations News.
Explore our press releases, feature articles, and announcements about Tauber students, speakers, team projects, and events.
Tauber students champion improvements across industry - and save sponsors millions
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 graduate students work for sponsoring companies to uncover 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.
Check out the challenges addressed by three of the twenty-one project teams who are presenting at SPOTLIGHT! 2022 – AIP Canam, Boeing Quality, and Gopuff MFC:
AIP Canam
The Tauber student team of Zaki Hassan (MBA), Matthew Schneider (EGL BSE-CSE/MSE-Data Science), and Lavya Upadhyay (MSE-IOE) worked to create a new cost estimation module for Canam’s products, helping the company accurately allocate its overall costs to each of the jobs it performs. The Tauber team developed new software to replace an outdated legacy system.
Boeing Quality
The Boeing Commercial Airplanes engineering unit tasked the Tauber student team of Federico De Geronimo (EGL BSE/MSE- Aero), Ivan Kudrenko (MBA), and Kartik Sriram Kumaravelan (MSE-IOE) with helping to decrease defects within the manufacturing process, in part by ensuring the appropriate measures are being used as key performance indicators. These defects cause delays down the manufacturing line and result in timely and costly reactionary maneuvers. The ability to locate, eliminate, and prevent defects and their root causes is integral for improving Boeing’s first pass quality and overall customer satisfaction.
Gopuff MFC
Gopuff’s network of over 500 micro-fulfillment centers (MFCs) enables the delivery of essential goods within minutes. The Tauber student team of Molly Barstow (MBA & MS-Environment and Sustainability), Anya Kothari (MSE-IOE), and Sharan Manjunath (MSE-IOE) analyzed the process of stocking an MFC — how, where, and when should each product be placed? The team worked to develop recommendations to improve inventory management and space utilization along with a roadmap for a scalable pilot.
"The students love this event, the faculty love this event, the sponsors love this event, and the judges really love this event!"
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.
