Spring 2012



Message from the Director

Shawn Alborz, PhD
OM/SCM Program Director

Supply chain education programs across the United States have experienced steady student growth amidst a recovering U.S. economy. Experienced SCM professionals are returning to graduate school to enhance their skill set; undergraduate students are quickly recognizing a graduate education can provide strategic advantage in a competitive job market.

Our Master of Science in Supply Chain Management program at UT Dallas was ranked at #13 nationally, and #1 in Texas – by Gartner, Inc. as they released their 2011 ranking of supply chain graduate programs.

The technology research firm surveyed over 400 supply chain practitioners and academics to evaluate supply chain education providers based on industry value, program size and program scope. At UT Dallas, we have been charged to pursue excellence in supply chain education and maintain programs with industry value yielding graduates prepared to tackle the operational issues of the future.

Last spring, UT Dallas hosted the first Supply Chain Director’s Conference. Over 60 representatives from industry and academia converged at the Jindal School of Management at UT Dallas. The conference objective – to propose how supply chain management degree programs can best respond to industry demand for skilled and effective supply chain managers. Representatives from Accenture, Mary Kay, Nokia, PepsiCo, Honeywell, BNSF, AT&T, Fossil, and Sabre Airline Solutions compared and contrasted how innovations in supply chain management touch their business operations from a global perspective and how can we best prepare future generations of supply chain management recruits.

Moving forward, this new year of promise and expectation will certainly prove to reinvigorate our efforts to best serve our students and industry partners by providing unparalleled opportunities for our students and partners.

Supply Chain Management Directors’ Conference, Oct 12-13 2012

Arizona State University

UT Dallas (Naveen Jindal School of Management) has joined forces with Arizona State University (W.P. Carey School of Business) and Gartner (Supply Chain Talent Program) to bring a unique colloquium specific to program directors, assistant/associate deans and center managers who are involved in developing and managing different aspects of supply chain/operations programs and curriculum.

This conference is a premier colloquium for designing, developing, and even reinventing SCM programs. We plan to encourage thought-provoking conversations, debates on the several issues confronting us, and discussions of emerging ideas to promote program success at every level from the classroom through the dean’s suite. Learn More…

Industry Project: “Today’s Business Helping Tomorrow’s Leaders”

Gene Deluke

Gene Deluke, senior lecturer at The University of Texas at Dallas; Shudong Jiang, student; Alan Howell, student; Elizabeth Pospick, chief financial officer at Vent-A-Hood; and Marie Sindhuja Tamby, student.

This week, the Board of Directors at Vent-A-Hood was proud to give an audience to a very special group of business students. As part of the Capstone Project in Supply Chain Management at The University of Texas at Dallas, Vent-A-Hood provided a real-world perspective of modern-day manufacturing to some incredibly talented individuals. By giving an inside look at supply chain management from orders to shipping at our company, students were able to apply classroom knowledge to actual situations in the business world. And we were very impressed with the vision they had for the future of our industry and the systems and efficiencies that will continue to propel our brand to new heights in the years ahead.

Managing Energy: Risk, Investment, Technology (MERIT)

JSOM Responds To Demand For Energy Operations Education In North Texas

MERIT is a new operations management course designed for students and professionals interested in pursuing careers within the energy sector. Energy exploration and harvest is as synonymous with Texas as oil itself. Even those who do not closely follow the energy markets cannot miss media coverage of newsworthy events in the energy sector – oil/electricity shortages, environmental/humanitarian disasters and fuel commodity market fluctuations.

Energy companies are charged to meet consumer demand by providing adequate supply while serving as trusted stewards of our environment – all at pricing palatable to consumers and profitable for investors. Topics covered will include: managing new technologies for generating/finding energy, innovation in energy distribution, risk management, understanding how energy affects business, people, society and the environment.

The new MERIT course is designed to loosely correspond to the material covered by the Energy Risk Professional (ERP) certification administered by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. This course has been approved by the Global Association of Risk Professionals’ continuing professional education program.

“Managing Energy: Risk, Investment, Technology (MERIT)” was developed and is being taught by Metin Cakanyildirm, Associate Professor of Operations Management at The Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas.

Visiting Supply Chain Facilities

Holly Lutze, PhD

When Dr. Lutze, is on the fork lift, students know they are in store for a ‘hands on’ lesson in warehousing, distribution, consumer-packaged food production or third-party logistics.

Dr. Lutze serves as faculty advisor for the ISM (Institute for Supply Management) student organization. ISM provides supply chain students the opportunity to interact with industry mentors and representatives from companies and organizations.


During the semester of Fall 2011, several companies hosted site visits, including:

  • Cici’s Pizza
  • Frito Lay
  • General Motors
  • Sunny Delight
  • Texas Instruments

The opportunity for supply chain/operations management students to observe and work alongside their industry mentors provides experience not available in a traditional classroom.

Visits to Mary Kay and Fossil are planned for February 2012, as both of these Dallas-based companies host groups of supply chain management graduate students.

PhD Student Spotlight

Peter Zhu, Doctoral Candidate

Could you tell us a bit about yourself?

I obtained my bachelor’s degree in Operations Research from Fundan University in China. Then, I spent about two years in the industry, working as a Business Analyst at an international trade company in Shanghai.

What prompted you to choose UT Dallas to pursue your degree?

I have always been interested in higher education. I had heard that UT Dallas has an outstanding PhD program and after researching many universities, I decided to join the UT Dallas, particularly because of the reputation of its faculty. They are all well-known in the Operations Management field. I also enjoy Dallas very much.

What do you like about the OM program at UT Dallas?

Everything. The faculty members here are absolutely knowledgeable and extremely friendly. I have spent five fruitful years at UT Dallas, completing a broad set of courses and have worked on several interesting and challenging research problems.

What advice will you give to international students?

I encourage them to think about getting into the masters programs as soon as possible and build a solid foundation for joining the PhD program. Operations management is a fantastic field. I also would like to encourage them to gain more exposure to American culture, especially the sports (e.g., football, baseball, and basketball). After a good day of research, chatting with a fellow students and research about sports, would help you to relax and have fun everyday.

What do you teach and what are your research interests?

Currently, I teach undergraduate operations management courses for the Jindal School of Management. My research interests are supply chain management, sustainability and innovation, discrete models in manufacturing and operations. You may review my published research below.

Yunxia Zhu, Milind Dawande, Chelliah Sriskandarajah, 2011. “Value of Local Cash Reuse: Inventory Models for Medium-Size Depository Institutions under the New Federal Reserve Policy,” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 13(4) 508-524.

Milind Dawande, Vijay Mookerjee, Chelliah Sriskandarajah, Yunxia Zhu, “Structural Search and Optimization in Social Networks,” accepted for publication in INFORMS Journal on Computing.

TL 9000: Students Focus On Telecommunications

Collaboration in a Competitive Marketplace

Supply chain graduate students will be learning more about TL9000 and how this dynamic quality management system has revolutionized the communications industry. TL 9000 is continually defining the requirements for the design, development, production, delivery, installation and maintenance of telecommunications products, components and services.

Richard Morrow, director of the Global Information Assurance Center & the CyberSecurity and Emergency Preparedness Institute at UT Dallas. He is the original author of the TL9000 training modules and has been teaching the quality management systems to telecommunications professionals.

Based on the feedback from the telecommunication industry and a collaboration with AT&T, Mr Morrow is adapting the TL 9000 training modules and integrating them into the MS SCM core curriculum beginning in Fall 2012. The primary intent is to prepare our supply chain students with an adequate knowledge of TL9000 and quality management systems in telecommunications. This would enable our students to be successful in improving efficiency, implementing process improvements and reducing defects – adding millions to the bottom line of an organization.

In 1998, QuEST Forum (Quality Excellent for Suppliers of Telecommunications) developed the TL 9000 quality management system (QMS) to meet the supply chain quality requirements of the global communications industry. Built on and inclusive of ISO 9001, TL 9000 is organically designed for the communications industry, by the communications industry’s own subject matter experts.

QuEST Forum is a global information and communication technologies (ICT) association comprised of a unique partnership of telecommunications industry service providers and suppliers dedicated to continually improving products and services within the industry. The TL 9000 system of performance measurement has allowed companies to track performance and to identify position as compared to similar companies and products.

Capstone Project Course

Gene Deluke

Capstone Project in SCM is a course in the MS SCM curriculum providing real supply chain solutions for real industry supply chain issues. Students work in small teams, assigned to different projects, to analyze and provide solutions for supply chain improvements with a local company across multiple industries.

The course was originally created as a special topics course. However, in the 2009-2010 academic year, the special topics course was coined ” The Capstone Project,” in Supply Chain Management and offered under the direction of Professor Gene Deluke as part of the MS SCM curriculum.

Industry has recognized the value of student consulting and industry participation has grown from two sponsoring companies, Mary Kay Cosmetics and Honeywell International, to five sponsoring projects for spring 2012 (Mary Kay Cosmetics, Vent-A-Hood, Sherwin Williams, Wal-Mart and Ericsson). The projects cover different aspects of supply chain management (e.g., sourcing management, distribution optimization, scrap and material handling improvements).

All students who enroll in the Capstone Project in SCM course must be approved by Professor Deluke. He requires the student to have taken at least one SCM course or have previous SCM work experience. At the conclusion of the semester, each team presents their formal analysis and recommendations including a written report to their customer detailing a roadmap for improvement.

The Capstone Project in SCM course provides students real world, team-based projects and are often categorized by students as the experience necessary to land internships.

Companies benefit from the fresh perspective of bright young minds evaluating SCM process issues. This course provides industry partners access to some of our best and brightest students. Currently, there is no fee for a company to sponsor a project.

If you are interested in sponsoring a project for the Spring 2013 semester, please contact Professor Gene Deluke at 972-883-4808.

Impacting Industry With Student Internship

Avi Arora, MS SCM Spring 2012

After chatting with Avi Arora for just a few moments, it was clear why this captivating young man secured one of the most sought after internship positions in the telecommunications industry.

Arora, on track to complete his MS SCM degree in May 2012, applied for five internship positions with Ericsson through UT Dallas Career Services. Five interviews later, he received an offer to intern with Ericsson’s Presales Local Delivery Organization based in Plano Corporate Offices.

Utilizing the spreadsheet modeling skills gained in Dr. Kannan Ramanathan’s spreadsheet modeling course, Arora built a business opportunity tracker tool. The tool is currently utilized to bridge the efforts of several business teams dedicating resources to more than $1 billion in new or existing business opportunities.

Arora began his work with Ericsson in October 2011. He has received Ericsson ‘Intern of the Week’ recognition, and serves as project facilitator for an Ericsson internship sharing forum.

Industry Advisory Board Spotlight

Jan De Meulder

When industry advisors visit undergraduate and graduate classrooms, students gain exposure to the most current and relevant issues facing operations and supply chain managers. Serving as a guest lecturer in Supply Chain Management, a MS SCM Core Course, Meulder discussed TI’s global semiconductor supply chain providing students the opportunity to exercise the practical application of theory and knowledge.

Jan De Meulder is the Director, Trade Compliance, Supply Chain & Logistics in Texas Instruments’ Worldwide Procurement & Logistics organization, based in Dallas, Texas. He previously has held several managerial positions in finance & operations across TI, both in Europe and in the United States.

The most recent was Director of Finance & Operations for the Wireless Terminals Business Unit. Jan holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Leuven, Belgium and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago.