Taking on challenges outside of the classroom can be daunting, yet highly rewarding.
Back Row (from left): Russell Wood, Ari Reuben, Kennedy Bruce, Kannan Ramanathan, Keith Barker, Chong Lee
Select students in the Naveen Jindal School of Management who had worked for months to solve a real-world business problem had a special audience for the presentation of their recommendations in February.
The team of four graduate supply-chain management students, all dressed in their most professional attire, readied their final report on the very real challenges faced by ESAB, a Texas-based company that manufactures industrial welding and cutting products with a worldwide client base. Since July 2023, the foursome had analyzed the time taken by ESAB to resolve product warranty claims.
The students’ audience was comprised of executives from ESAB, their professor, students from JSOM, and members of the American Society of Quality. After an introduction from Kennedy Bruce, Chair for the Dallas Section of the American Society for Quality, all were eager to hear the results of eight months of work. The students all hoped their efforts would result in earning a Green Belt Certificate in JSOM’s Lean Six Sigma Program. Lean Six Sigma is a framework for improving quality, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Working on such projects towards obtaining a Green Belt Certificate is not part of a course, but a separate undertaking offered to select students. A project such as this is a great résumé builder for UTD students, according to Dr. Kannan Ramanathan, a clinical professor in the Operations Management Area at the Jindal School.
“The real project carries a lot of weight with employers,” Ramanathan said. “In the last 15 years, I have never had a student say it was a waste of time or money. For international students it is a big plus as they do not need to have a visa or a work permit to work on an academic project.”
The Green Belt candidates applied and then were selected for this special project. Ramanathan coached them throughout their endeavors.
Members of the special projects team are graduate students Anusha Kalakota (Team Leader), Phani Bhushan Sankula, Abhinava Kanumuru and Supreeth Nimmagadda. ESAB executives took a special interest in the project and included Keith Barker global quality manager, Lee Chong, plant manager Purushi Doddanna, and Varsha Suman Ramanathan, the automation operations manager in the welding and cutting products division. Varsha, MBA’12 graduate, is the professor’s spouse and is currently pursuing a doctorate in business administration at the Jindal School.
“What we’re trying to do is give them a sense of what the real world is,” Doddanna said of the collaboration between UTD and ESAB. “We want to give them the exposure. Giving them that exposure helps them to jump to the next level.”
Kalakota points to the Albert Einstein quote “Learning is experience. Everything else is just information.” She thinks the quote aptly describes her experience on this project.
“I believe in this,” she said. “While classrooms provide us with rich information, true understanding and growth come from applying that knowledge in real-world projects. Through our recent project, I experienced the joy of practical application and gained invaluable insights while interacting with experts from ESAB.”
For this assignment with ESAB, the students were to address customers experiencing issues with defective products who presented a warranty claim to ESAB. They were directed to find solutions to reduce the average number of days to process the claims. The current average is more than 300 days.
In their February presentation of their findings, the students used charts, graphs, and maps to illustrate their work and their recommendations. The goal was to shrink the evaluation timeline from its current 86-day average to a preferred 30-day average.
The students concluded the process could be improved. Their presentation pinpointed problem areas which included improving the intake process, minimizing lost data, choosing the most suitable shipping mode, and mandating detailed descriptions of product failures.
“Working with industry professionals was an incredibly valuable experience for me,” Sankula said. “It provided me with real-world insights and perspectives that I wouldn’t have gained otherwise. Collaborating with professionals who have hands-on experience in the field helped me understand the practical applications of the concepts I was learning and how they translate into tangible results in the industry.”
The group’s project was a success in many ways, attracting attention from the company and others, too. As the team offered their findings, ESAB executives in attendance could be seen nodding their heads in agreement. But ESAB employees were not the only audience members who were impressed by the students’ detailed work.
“This could be a great working relationship with companies and the colleges,” said John Jennings, MS’96, a UT Dallas electrical engineering graduate and a member of the American Society for Quality, a professional organization with global membership. “It’s a win-win situation. They did a very good job of presenting their Green Belt project, and the company received improvement ideas.”
Jennings, a frequent campus visitor who volunteers as an ECE UT Design Expo judge for senior class projects, said he would submit this group project into consideration for the ASQ’s world quality conference to be held in May in San Diego. Joe Sepulveda, ASQ deputy regional director for student branches, said that even as a professional with years of experience, he was able to learn from this presentation.
“I always feel like I can learn from other people, regardless of age and experience,” he said. He also thinks the students can benefit from the mentoring relationships with the professionals. “To me, giving back in terms of mentoring is what drives me.”
As a group, the students learned the challenges of project management involving multiple stakeholders and the practicality and effectiveness of Lean Six Sigma methodologies. The solutions and presentations earned the approval of many, including Ramanathan and company executives. Ramanathan thinks these students are well on their way in the Six Sigma process, headed toward earning their Green Belts. Doddanna now wants the students to find solutions to drop the process time even further.
“We’re very excited to have this relationship with UTD,” Doddanna said. “This is talent that I’ll always have in the ESAB pipeline.”
That pipeline is working well, too, for UTD students. Anusha Kalakota, who led the team, has been hired as an intern at ESAB.
