News for alumni & friends
March 2021
Greetings from Ann Arbor -

Over the past month, we welcomed dozens of distinguished visitors for virtual activities at the Tauber Institute. Project sponsors were excited to get to know our students through the team project matching process. Industry reviewers provided candid feedback on products students designed and built for the Integrated Product Development class. Alumni shared insights and offered words of encouragement to students preparing for team project interviews. Our Industry Advisory Board gathered to offer their perspectives in support of the institute's mission. And workshop leaders such as Jamie Bononi, VP for the Toyota Production System Support Center, brought their operations expertise to our virtual classrooms.

We are eager to be able to host you in person on our magnificent Michigan campus, but we are glad to stay safely connected through technology. Never hesitate to reach out to us with your ideas for institute programs and events! The commitment of our community to continuous improvement makes us strong.

Go Blue!
Business Co-director
Tauber Institute for Global Operations
U-M leadership statements promote inclusion and respect
The University of Michigan is committed to promoting a culture of inclusion and respect. Violent acts and divisive rhetoric have had an impact on our community this past month. Here are links to responses from our leadership and resources from our Michigan colleagues for positive action in response to recent events:
Tauber Institute partner schools receive high US News rankings
In the US News & World Report's most recent graduate program rankings, Michigan Engineering placed 7th among the Best Engineering Schools and Michigan Ross placed 13th among Best Business Schools. U-M ranks 2nd for Industrial / Manufacturing / Systems Engineering specialty programs and 3rd for Production / Operations MBA programs.
IPD products help disrupted consumers regain control
Don't miss this semester's Integrated Product Development Online Trade Show, April 14-20 on the Tauber Institute website. Multidisciplinary student teams created brand new products to help consumers regain a sense of control amidst the major life disruptions of the past pandemic year.
"This experience has really reinforced my belief that problems are best solved by people with lots of different backgrounds and perspectives working together."

IOE Professor Amy Cohn and her team received the Ted Kennedy Family Faculty Team Excellence Award for COVID response work. The award recognizes extraordinary and significant work from collaboration in teaching or research from Michigan Engineering. Professor Cohn has been a Tauber team project faculty advisor for over fifteen years and is the faculty director of the Center for Health Engineering & Patient Safety. Her recent work includes studying aerosolization, N-95 mask reprocessing, and field hospital staffing optimization.

Ready for the 2021 team project kickoff!
Many thanks to all the alumni who joined us for a virtual hang-out with students preparing for their team project interviews, especially Ray Gonzalez and Matt Gibson, who helped organize the hang-out. Contact Tauber Associate Director Asli Aka if you would like to be involved in similar alumni-student events.
A gift for your future operations leader
Our Tauber family continues to grow, so we ordered swag in smaller sizes for our littlest family members. Tell us about your new arrival, so we can welcome your future operations leader with optimal onesie style.
You're never too young to Go Blue!
"We created the simulation model so that we could visualize the current state and test out various options for the future state of operations."

The 2020 Stoneridge project team's efforts to create value and eliminate waste in the production of Stoneridge’s innovative MirrorEye® camera monitor system are expected to yield significant benefits, including an increase in inventory turns of 282% and a reduction in days of inventory of 68% over five years, while driving major efficiency and quality improvements throughout Stoneridge’s MirrorEye® supply chain. With limited on-site access, the team's development of a simulation model was key to their success.

Tauber student team: Adrien Beaufils (EGL BSE-ME/MSE-IOE), Nolan Feeny (EGL BSE/MSE-IOE), Jordan Owens (MBA)
Faculty advisors: Mariel Lavieri (engineering) & Brian Talbot (business)
Stoneridge project sponsors: Laurent Borne, Archie Nimmer, Kyle Wolfe

Meet Tauber leadership at the INFORMS analytics conference
Meet members of the Tauber leadership team during the virtual 2021 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics & Operations Research, April 12-14. The conference will explore best practices and groundbreaking analytics applications, including healthcare, robotics and AI, data ethics, and the role of data science in the media and workplace. Contact Tauber Marketing & Communications Manager Theresa Ceccarelli to schedule a meeting.
Register for the Positive Business Conference
Join us at the 2021 Positive Business Conference, presented virtually May 13-14. We’ll learn from leading faculty and industry experts about how to become more engaged with our work and each other, how to become more mindful and inclusive, and how to apply this work to the greater good.
Your contributions on Giving Blueday and throughout the year ensure our students continue to be the Leaders & Best in operations. Many thanks to Lesli Ann Agcaoili, Andrew Burgess, Diana Crossley, Andres Fuentes-Afflick, David Ginsberg, Xiadong Lin, Vinayak Modi, Robert Regan, and anonymous donors for your gifts to the Tauber Institute's Giving Blueday fund drive to provide project management certification scholarships, and to all our alumni and friends for your ongoing support.

glass_globe_paperweight.jpg
Team Up with Tauber!
According to sponsoring company calculations, the 2020 Tauber team projects resulted in an average of $31 million per project savings over three years. Total projected savings is over $433 million.