w w w . m h i . o r g • M H I S o l u t I o n S 65

A professor walked into a faculty meeting at Bradley University eight years ago waiving a Wall

Street Journal article in the air and saying, “We must do something about supply chain management.” The faculty agreed, but where to start?

Supply chain management is a hot new field for universities, and we knew that we’d need to take an innovative approach if we were going to do some-thing meaningful. So we reached out to practitioners, industry associations and academics from around our campus to explore the real industry needs and see if we could design a radically new kind of program.

Many of the practitioners we spoke with encouraged us to model best practices in supply chain management (SCM) by focusing on our core strengths and then looking for ways to collaborate with outside partners in creative ways. This approach would provide us with access to valuable resources outside of the department and the university.

And while we decided that the pro-gram should be managed by the mar-keting department, it would need to be delivered in cooperation with at least nine other entities. That certainly made the process more complex, but the result has been a transformative experience for students, and the process of develop-ing and delivering that experience has transformed our view of undergraduate supply chain education.

Within the marketing department, we were able to draw on one of the nation’s oldest undergraduate inter-national business programs to incor-porate expertise in international trade and compliance. Similarly, we drew on a nationally-recognized professional sales program to provide our SCM graduates

Innovation in Education In the quest to create a transformative experience for students, our view of supply chain management education has been transformed

BY EdWARd BONd, PH.d., CHAIR ANd ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, dEPARTMENT OF MARkETING, BRAdLEY UNIVERSITY

with tools for diagnosing needs and influ-encing decisions. And we kept experi-ences from our marketing program that build skills in making professional pre-sentations, doing real-world marketing research that connects the supply chain to end-user metrics, and integrating dis-tribution into the larger marketing mix of the firm.

To complement our traditional areas of expertise, we recruited an executive

from one of our industry partners to develop and teach the introductory supply chain management class. This class was designed from the ground up to take a unique and counterintui-tive approach to the subject. Instead of moving students through a survey textbook, the course would create an immersion-like experience.

On the first day of class, students would play the well-known Beer Game

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from MIT. As students progressed, they would experience supply chain challenges first-hand by participating in a team-based simulation called The Fresh Connection. Meanwhile, they would be required to do individual research into the processes in the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) Model and other important supply chain concepts. Each week, every student would submit a concise memo with footnoted references and then receive personal feedback from the instructor.

These memos formed the basis for in-class discussions and teach-backs by students. Finally, the students would meet a different supply chain thought leader each week to provide insights about a particular aspect of their career or expertise. By the end of the course, students would also read a contemporary business book about supply chains and submit a term paper about a supply chain of their choice.

The result was an introductory class that deeply engages students in the subject and draws in those who may not have seen SCM as their ideal aca-demic pursuit. It also reinforces three of the skills that are most requested by employers: critical thinking, team-work and business writing.

Our approach to the introduction class necessarily left a few terminol-ogy gaps, so we partnered with our local APICS chapter to offer a new course that aligns with two of the Certified Professional in Inventory Management (CPIM) certification tests. Students in this class would develop a broad understanding of sup-ply chain concepts and terminology while sitting next to working profes-sionals who are preparing for certifica-tion. We have found that the interplay between students and practitioners is rich and rewarding, and, as an added benefit, at least one student’s future career began with a connection made in this required class!

Because supply chain profession-als are drawn from both business and engineering schools, we partnered with the industrial engineering department for classes in logistics. One of our goals

for this training is to build an under-standing of the nuanced differences in focus between the engineering and business students, and to build a basis for future collaboration with profes-sionals who approach the supply chain from either perspective.

We have also created a joint busi-ness-engineering capstone class that addresses client organizations’ sup-ply chain problems under the guid-ance of an instructor with global supply chain responsibilities for a Fortune 50 firm. By the end of the term, students will have experience giving immediate feedback to a cli-ent after a walk-through, gathering data and delivering a formal report after weeks of analysis, and using ana-lytical tools that are typically unavail-able to undergraduate students from other majors.

This innovative approach appears to be a success. At the last two May commencements, students have graduated from our Global Supply Chain Management program with good offers from leading companies. One graduate who accepted a position as an inventory and planning man-ager with a global pharmaceutical company later told us that it was his international trade skills that differ-entiated him in the job market.

The program has been transforma-tive by drawing business students into supply chain management as a disci-pline and allowing them to develop and demonstrate critical skills. Yet another transformation was driven by the partnership of our professors with other academics, practitioners and professional organizations.

Academics are prone to go it alone, but we have learned that we can deliver a better product if we effec-tively partner with other individuals and organizations. Together with this intellectual and experiential supply chain we are generating an amazing educational experience for our stu-dents—an experience that we could never provide alone.

Founded in 1897, Bradley is a mid-sized private university located in Peoria, IL. ●

T H E I N D U S T R Y T H AT M A K E S S U P P LY C H A I N S W O R K ® Q4 2015

improving Supply Chain performance

Technology and new processes aid in sUpply chain efficiency

and opTimizaTion

RiskManageMent

+Creating Resilient

supply Chains

Onshoring Versus Offshoring

Utilizing technology to Reduce supply Chain Risk

Protecting Your Reputation

not ‘One of the guys’ — the Changing Face of supply

Chain Leadership

industry Focus: Pharmaceutical

w w w . m h i . o r g • M H I S o l u t I o n S 5

CONTENTS Volume 3, Number 4

IN EVERY ISSUE X7 CEO Update

By George W. Prest

55 Industry Trends By Jeff Woroniecki

59 Economic Market Analysis By Jason Schenker

61 Education By Daniel Stanton

65 Innovation in Education By Edward Bond, Ph.D.

67 Safer Handling By Jean Feingold

69 Solutions Group Update By Matthew Smurr

71 Fulfillment Update By Katie Kuehner-Hebert

73 Solutions Spotlight By Amy Drew Thompson

75 Roadmap Update By Gary Forger

76 Scholarship Winners: Where Are They Now?

78 MHI News

81 Calendar

82 Index of Advertisers

Go to mhi.org for more information.

Utilizing Technology to Reduce Supply Chain Risk p 24

Industry Focus: Pharmaceutical p 48

Creating Resilient Supply Chains p 10

FEATURES

10 Creating Resilient Supply Chains Rebounding from disruptions requires assessing potential risks, quantifying those risks, and responding. By Mary Lou Jay

18 Onshoring Versus Offshoring We’ll evaluate the benefits of each, looking at costs, risks and benefits. By Sheryl Jackson

24 Utilizing Technology to Reduce Supply Chain Risk Technology such as RFID and GPS can aid in visibility and efficiency, but also carry risks. By Katie Kuehner-Hebert

32 Protecting Your Reputation Outsourcing operations comes with risk, but steps can be taken to protect your company’s brand. By Fiona Soltes

38 Not ‘One of the Guys’ — The Changing Face of Supply Chain Leadership MHI Solutions talks to seven women who are leading successful supply chains. By Carol Miller

48 Industry Focus: Pharmaceutical While the outlook for this sector remains healthy, the industry is facing price pressures, rising federal fines, tighter regulations and greater government scrutiny. By Sandy Smith

w w w . m h i . o r g • M H I S o l u t I o n S 7

CEO UPdATE

Supply chain risk and the resulting disruption is a leading cause of business volatil-ity. With more companies expanding into new and often emerging markets—using more complex and extended networks of suppliers and partners—the supply chain is at once a growth enabler and a key source of risk.

This is an area where we as an industry cannot afford to be complacent.This issue of MHI Solutions tackles how to effectively manage supply chain

risk, from best practices and technologies that can reduce risk to offshoring versus nearshoring and the potential danger of outsourcing your brand reputation.

The current talent shortage also poses a significant risk to supply chains. This issue includes a special feature on women in supply chain. This article tells the stories of seven incredible leaders who are transforming our industry and changing the way the manufacturing and supply chain profession is perceived.

Our industry is a growing, diverse and vibrant one and leaders like these rep-resent the changing face of our industry that is a big part of the solution to the workforce crisis.

The one common theme in addressing all these issues is collaboration. Collaboration between suppliers, the user community, academia and industry associations is essential to improve supply chain performance, increase operational efficiency and reduce business risk.

To this end, MHI has expanded the educational and networking offerings at our MHI Executive Summit and Annual Conference being held as you read this in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. We are also allowing members and non-members of MHI to attend to create a venue for this collaboration to take place.

During this conference, our industry is beginning the process to transform into a living, growing community that shares knowledge and collaborates to address current and future manufacturing and supply chain challenges and opportunities.

Luminaries like Paul Dittman (University of Tennessee Global Supply Chain Institute), David Butler (Coca-Cola), Patrick Murzyn (Caterpillar) and Lora Cecere (Supply Chain Insights), among others, are sharing insights and strategies for trans-forming supply chains into next generation models.

Next year’s MHI Executive Summit and Annual Conference will be held October 16-15, 2016 at the Hilton El Conquistador in Tucson, Arizona. We hope you will make plans now to join us there.

I hope this issue of MHI Solutions helps provide the information and resources you need to address risk, transform your supply chain and improve overall busi-ness performance.

Cheers!

George W. Prest Chief Executive Officer, MHI

Improving Supply Chain Resilience through Risk Management

MHI 2015 Board of Governors

David Young, Chairman, MHI EGA Products, Inc.

John Paxton, President, MHI Terex Corporation

Gregg Goodner, Vice President, MHI Hytrol Conveyor Company, Inc.

Larry Strayhorn, Last Retiring Executive Chairman

WEPCO, Inc.

Steve Buccella Dematic Corporation

Bryan Carey Starrco Co., Inc.

Brian Cohen Hanel Storage Systems

Willard Heddles Tiffin Metal Products, Inc.

David Lippert Hamilton Caster & Mfg. Co.

Brian McNamara Southworth International Group, Inc.

George W. Prest MHI

Colin Wilson NACCO Material Handling Group, Inc.

Brett Wood Toyota Material Handling, USA, Inc.

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PuBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2015/MHI-Q0415/1354

Improving Supply Chain Performance