Carlson School to Host 4th Annual National Supply Chain Case Competition

The Carlson School will host the fourth annual National Undergraduate Supply Chain Case Competition on March 30 to April 2.
 
The competition will bring together 16 of the top undergraduate supply chain programs in the country. Competing teams include Arizona State, Baylor, Brigham Young, Indiana, Iowa State, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Syracuse, Texas Christian, UT-Austin, Houston, Michigan-Dearborn, Wisconsin-Madison, and the Carlson School.
 
Representing the Carlson School will be the team of Katie Fineout, Paul Mitchell, Janet Mwanyika, and Keon Garvin. They earned this honor by taking first place at the 11th annual “Local” Supply Chain Case Competition on March 4 at the Carlson School.
 
At the national event, each team of four undergraduate students will compete in a 24-hour business case with presentations to judges’ panels consisting of business professionals from the corporate sponsors. The case is written with 3M supply chain professionals on a 3M business application.  Last year’s case had the students consider alternatives and recommendations for a global supply chain with complexities in sourcing, operations, logistics, customer markets, and determining actions for optimizing a global supply chain.  These are the same complex issues facing the supply chains in many multinational corporations. The case proves to be an exceptional test for students as they wrestle with the complexity of real-world problems. 
 
Four days of competition events include the opening reception, host sponsor site visits at six locations, a lunch for academic advisors, and the competition with an awards dinner. Well over 200 corporate employees will be engaged in some aspect of the case competition, along with 80 student participants and academic advisors. 
 
The financial support of corporate sponsors allow for $10,000 in cash prizes paid out to students. The 15 corporate sponsors for the 2016 case competition are: