The GOC, a vibrant and successful conference hitting all the right marks of operations from additive manufacturing opportunities, big data & predictive analytics, global risk in the supply chain, corporate social responsibility, to operational integration opportunities…its biggest accomplishment is that it is entirely graduate-student driven.

ANN ARBOR, MI,  -- The Ninth Annual Global Operations Conference, held Nov. 5-6, 2015 at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, brought industry leaders, faculty, and students together to discuss the leading topics and pervasive issues related to supply chain and operations. A series of presentations from high-level speakers and panels explored big data and predictive analytics, changing the product development paradigm, managing global risk and uncertainty, and corporate social responsibility.

Keynote Speakers and Panel Discussions

Joel Tauber opened the conference by addressing the importance of manufacturing in business, managing your risks, and being patient when uncertainty arises.

The Thursday evening keynote speaker was Toby Brzoznowski, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President for LLamasoft. He leads the global sales, marketing and business development teams. Brzoznowski shared how companies today have so many more internal and external factors affecting their business. With that volatility and change comes more questions to answer - questions regarding inventory, productive footprint, service and performance metrics, product flow, transportation, product demand, and network structure. Solutions include the use of technology, but technology is only part of the solution. It’s about the people and investing in the development of talent.

View event photos here.

Friday morning keynote speaker was Greg Morris, a Leader of Additive Technologies within GE Aviation.  Morris shared his extensive background in rapid prototyping, or “additive manufacturing” and the evolution of the technology. Additive manufacturing has revolutionized the way complex high-performance products are made. Both keynote speakers took questions from the audience.

Managing global risk in a complex supply chain was the focus of panel 1. How companies are managing their increasingly complex supply chains in a global environment that is fraught with risks ranging from geopolitical concerns, currency fluctuations, natural disaster, and other issues was their focus. Moderated by Ravi Anupindi - David B. Hermelin Professor of Business Administration; Professor of Technology and Operations at the Ross School of Business. Panelists included Riddhish Dubal, Managing Director, Alvarez & Marsal Co., ​​Adam Martin, Director of Operations, Engine Management at The Boeing Company, Tom Easthope, Senior Enterprise Risk Manager at Microsoft, ​Peter Frank, Principal, US Leader CIPS Risk Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and Scott Metcalf, Supply Chain Consultant at Grainger.

Panel 2’s focus was creating extreme industrial innovation. Specifically, how are connected devices and big data creating efficiency improvements for companies within their manufacturing network? Moderated by Amitabh Sinha, Associate Professor of Technology and Operations, Co-Director of the Joel D. Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the Ross School of Business. Panelists included Laurent Becher, Partner at Deloitte Consulting, Elisabeth Smith, President and CEO of Acutec Precision Machining, ​​​and Andrew Burgess, Senior Manager, Business Intelligence and Analytics, BCA Quality at The Boeing Company.

​Exceeding customer expectations in an increasingly competitive environment was the topic for the 3rd panel. Particularly, how are predictive analytics and big data influencing supply chain strategies to exceed ever increasing customer expectations? Moderated by Hyun-Soo Ahn, Michael R. and Mary Kay Hallman Fellow, Professor of Technology and Operations, Faculty Director-Master Supply Chain Management at the Ross School of Business. Panelists included C. Kevin Harrington, GM Global Operations Services at Microsoft, Riddhish Dubal, Managing Director at Alvarez & Marsal Co., Farhan Khan, Senior Manager, Capacity Planning for Amazon, and Sara Ali, Business Development Manager at Microsoft.

Last, panel 4’s topic was focusing on corporate social responsibility throughout the supply chain. Specifically, how are companies creating sustainable supply chain practices in a world with varying regulatory requirements, and how are they using these practices as a competitive advantage? Moderated by Marina v.N. Whitman, Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Business Administration at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Ross School of Business. Panelists included Cherry Burke, Global Supply Chain Safety and Sustainability Expertise Director at Dow Chemical, Elliot Forsyth, Vice President of Business Operations for Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, ​Peter Grady, former CEO of Maserati, and Julie Bogas, Partner Advisory Services for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

The afternoon keynote speaker was Jeff Krakowiak, Senior Vice President, Integration at Eaton. Jeff joined Eaton in 2005 from Visteon and previously worked for Ford Motor Company. Prior to his most recent role, he served Eaton as the Automotive Group's director of sales for the Ford account worldwide.

Business Case Competition Results

In conjunction with the University of Michigan Global Operations Conference, PwC and Strategy& sponsored the annual Global Operations Case Competition to challenge and reward students with an interest in forward-thinking operations solutions. For the first round there were 47 submissions from 9 different schools. Finalists’ resumes were offered to conference sponsors and $4000 was awarded to the winning team from Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon. The student team entitled "Tepper Toolbox" included: Jeffrey H Bloom, Frank Shang, Gregory Holste, and Jeffrey Almario.

The runner-up team (winning $1000): The Weekenders (Derrick J LoCicero, J Corbin DiMeglio, James Kane, and Mike Monroe).

Other teams from the Ross School of Business included: Notorious AA (Taeyong Kim and Jung-ho Won), Seal Team Six (Aaron Bernhardt, Jamie Tsai, Rohit Tongia, and Zheng Xu), and Simply Life (Han Mei, Yuepan Zhang, and Haoting Sun).

The 2015 Global Operations Conference was organized by students from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations, Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan.

The GOC was made possible by the support of the following corporate sponsors:

• Gold: Eaton, Microsoft
• Silver: 3M, Amazon, Cisco, Deloitte, and Steelcase
• Reception Sponsor: BorgWarner
• Case Competition Sponsor: PwC and Strategy&

2015 Global Operations Conference Board

• Conference Chairs – Brent Hasenkamp and Carrie Johnston
• Speakers and Panelists Chairs – Eleanore An and Mukul Shekhar
• Marketing Chairs – Amanda Bayagich and Dave Mazur
• Sponsorship Chairs – Lucius Clay and Nabeel Kasim
• Logistics and Internal Planning Chairs – Mike Quan and Kelly Ogiesoba
• Case Competition Chairs – Allison Holmgren

For more information on the Tauber Institute for Global Operations and the Global Operations Conference, go to www.tauber.umich.edu

About Tauber Institute for Global Operations

The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering, and many industry partners to facilitate cross-disciplinary education in global operations management. In addition to broad array of core and elective courses, the innovative LeadershipAdvantage^SM Program provides students with the tools to ascend to major operations leadership roles. Well-designed and managed team projects form the cornerstone of the Tauber Institute experience and allow students to apply their knowledge to real world settings. http://www.tauber.umich.edu