Tauber students champion improvements across industry - create immeasurable value

Ann Arbor, MI –  The 2023 Tauber Team Projects resulted in $820.3 million in savings and revenue improvements according to sponsoring company calculations, an average of $45.5 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 eighteen project teams who are presenting at SPOTLIGHT! 2023 – MillerKnoll, Ford Motor Company, and Boeing (Early Warning):

MillerKnoll

The Tauber student team of Rachael White (Master of Business Administration) and Won Young Kang (EGL BSE Mechanical Engineering/MSE Industrial and Operations Engineering) worked to investigate and identify opportunities for process improvements and automation in MillerKnoll's warehousing operations to shorten lead times and decrease costs. After piloting several ideas, the team will propose recommendations for the implementation of creative, high-value solutions to improve processes using automation to increase the standardization and efficiency of MillerKnoll's distribution facilities.

Ford Motor Company

The Tauber team of Brendan Biache (Master of Business Administration) and Elizabeth Hoyt – EGL (BSE Chemical/MSE Systems) worked to assess the potential and difficulties of scaling additive manufacturing (AM) compared to traditional manufacturing in the automotive industry, specifically for Ford. The goal is to provide the AM team with cost predictions based on variable inputs, to determine the scalability of AM, and to develop an interactive model that can be used to compare AM with traditional manufacturing.

The Boeing Company

The Boeing team of Aidan Fitzgerald (EGL (BSE/MSE-Industrial and Operations Engineering), Delenn Bauer (Master of Business Administration) and Lis Martinez-Bernal (EGL (BSE-Biomedical/MSE-Industrial and Operations Engineering) were tasked with creating a preventative risk management tool over the course of the 14-week internship. The team used focused interview groups, external benchmarking, and data analysis in order to create a sustainable and useful tool for Boeing’s safety management system.