Ann Arbor, MI – For over 25 years, teams of business and engineering graduate students from the Tauber Institute of Global Operations have spent their summer working on-site for top global firms. The student teams develop solutions for their sponsors’ tough operations challenges, often uncovering millions of dollars in potential savings, as well as providing significant improvements in areas such as CO2 emissions, energy consumption, throughput time, and supply chain risk. 

Due to COVID-19 disruptions, this summer is necessarily different, as sponsoring companies continue to adapt to radical changes to their work environments. Throughout the spring semester, manufacturing plants shut down, corporate budgets tightened, and many traditional internship programs were eliminated. But the Tauber Institute was determined its students would still be able to experience the team projects that are a cornerstone of their action-based learning program.

“Our industry sponsors, Tauber staff, students, and faculty were suddenly engaged in a mammoth effort to ensure that each Tauber student had an opportunity for a productive and rewarding summer," Tauber Institute Industry Director Ray Muscat said, “A large number of our Industry sponsors pivoted from plant/facility/location-based projects to projects that allowed for virtual execution. In many cases, support systems were put in place to allow for student teams to connect with operations personnel in this new and challenging environment.”

Following the safety protocols of their sponsoring companies, most 2020 Tauber team projects are proceeding virtually - but a few teams are currently able to work on-site. MBA student Katie Cameron of Tauber Team PepsiCo reports, "I’m so grateful for the opportunity to be on-site; given the fact that many of my peers aren’t able to work in person, I’m even more motivated to make the most of my time and create a lasting impact." Cameron and her teammate Wesley Davis are developing pragmatic strategies to help the Dallas Gatorade plant achieve their 2025 Water Use Goals. Cameron says she “couldn’t be more excited to learn the technicalities of bringing these sustainability goals to life!”

Some sponsors are creating a virtual on-site experience for Tauber students. Muscat explains, “In the case of one project requiring benchmarking between four plants across the eastern US, company team members were assigned at each plant to be Tauber team liaisons. Their role is to facilitate communications, assist data gathering, and provide for virtual plant tours as needed. To make the solution even more powerful, three of the four employees assigned are recent Tauber graduates!”

The institute was already coordinating team projects primarily through digital platforms, but “now everything is digital, and you can access it from anywhere," says Tauber Student Coordinator Chloe Jacob. The Tauber Team Project Portal provides student teams with a centralized online location for sharing and retrieving information, as well as a broad array of resources tailored to their needs. Michigan Ross librarians developed an online interface that gives Tauber students instant access to key publications in Lean Theory, Value Chain, Logistics, Materials Management, and Analytics. In addition, each student team receives direct support from University of Michigan experts who are only a click away: Tauber Institute co-directors, business and engineering faculty advisors, and team dynamics and communications coaches.

The 2020 Tauber team project sponsors include: Amazon, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Beyond Meat, Boeing, Brose, Curation Foods, DoorDash, EA, FedEx, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, General Motors, Microsoft, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Stanley Black & Decker, Steelcase, Stoneridge, and Target. For more information visit www.tauber.umich.edu.

Contact: Theresa Ceccarelli, Marketing Manager / [email protected] / 734-647-0308

The Tauber Institute for Global Operations is a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s 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.

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