Tennessee on Supply Chain Management

S3E1: Creating Real-World Learning Environments with Paul Fortunato and Albemarle

Season 3 Episode 1

For the first episode of our third season, co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby speak with Haslam College of Business lecturer Paul Fortunato and partners from his Supply Chain Project Management (SCM 430) course at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 

Fortunato, a former executive with Dow Chemical Company, invited Lori Maurer, director of the center for supply chain excellence, and Riley Clayton, logistics and supply chain manager, from Albemarle to talk with Ted and Tom about the corporation’s three-year involvement in his course.

UT’s top-ranked supply chain management programs are held up by their real-world relevance and the close work with corporate partners such as Albemarle, a leading provider of lithium, bromine, and other essential chemical elements.

Don’t miss this exciting discussion on talent identification, university and business collaborations, and real-world supply chain challenges addressed by UT students. To open the episode, our hosts also talk about the impact of U.S. port strikes, economic growth numbers, the upcoming presidential election, and more! 

Is your company interested in partnering with the University of Tennessee? Learn more about becoming a member of our renowned Supply Chain Forum.

The episode was recorded virtually on October 28. 

Related links

Text the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management team!

Intro/Outro:

Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast. Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby set sail into the world of end-to-end supply chain management, diving deep into today's most relevant business topics. They'll share insights in pressing industry issues and tackle the challenges keeping supply chain professionals up at night. If you're enjoying the ride, download and subscribe to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management on your favorite podcast platform now.

Tom Goldsby:

Hello and welcome to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management, season 3, episode 1. So excited to be bringing this to you from Rocky Top. I am Tom Goldsby and I'm joined by my co-host, dr Ted Stank. Hello, ted.

Ted Stank:

Hey Tom, How's it going? Things are going well, hey, is it true that our writing team has been refreshed so that we don't go down some crazy rabbit hole, like so many shows do in their third season?

Tom Goldsby:

Well, you mean jumping the shark, do you think we're?

Ted Stank:

at risk of doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, those kinds of things.

Tom Goldsby:

It's entirely possible, but we spent what? About three minutes before launching the recording rehearsing this episode, so I don't think we're really at risk of that. We're going to keep it fresh.

Ted Stank:

Now you just did something that in our pre-episode talk that we did to one of our guests, riley Clayton, you mentioned jumping the shark. I bet Riley has no idea what jumping the shark is.

Tom Goldsby:

I don't know that we're at risk of doing that, given how wild and woolly the world of supply chain is. Always something new and fresh out there, and so why don't we take just a few minutes before we bring Riley and our guests into the conversation? Just catch up a little bit. Our last podcast, as we closed out season two. Actually we had that kind of bonus session with Kate Vytasik we recorded at CSCMP. Have you recovered from CSCMP, Ted?

Ted Stank:

Yeah, yeah, I have. It always tires me out all that networking, you know, but everything is good now.

Tom Goldsby:

Back then we were perhaps days, or maybe even hours away from an impending East Coast Gulf Coast worker strike, and sure enough, it happened. What was it About? 72 hours?

Ted Stank:

Yeah, lasted about three days.

Tom Goldsby:

Pretty short lived and, that said, we're not out of the woods yet, am I correct? They kind of settled on wages and maybe some benefits, but the issue of automation is still on the table, and that's the one that's always been lingering out there, and they're going to revisit that by the middle of January. I did hear just in the last day or so that they're getting those talks underway, so maybe they'll get that resolved, maybe even before the end of the year. What do you think?

Ted Stank:

Yeah, they're supposed to be going back to the negotiating table in November. The catch, however, is even with the wages 62% wage growth over the next four years, I believe, was what was agreed upon, but that has not yet been ratified by the rank and file. So the table is still wide open for those negotiations. The good news and this is kind of a precursor to something we're going to talk about in a little while is it will have happened after the US presidential election, so there might be a little bit more room for government involvement.

Tom Goldsby:

You know it's interesting how long it's going to take to get that thing settled.

Ted Stank:

That's the big speculation, maybe by the middle of January, you're right. So, tom, some other things. You know the other statistics that we kind of look at. The US economy continues to show pretty strong growth. The English trade and business journal the Economist led with a cover on. The US economy is the envy of the world and it's interesting because watching all these election campaign advertisements you would think that we are in the 1929 world depression crash. Is how the politicians are making it seem.

Tom Goldsby:

Well, our very own chief economist, Marianne Wanamaker, who a frequent guest on the show, and I think we'll be bringing her back, I think soon after the election.

Ted Stank:

December, actually first week in December.

Tom Goldsby:

But she's been talking about that envy of the world storyline for quite some time. In fact, I joined her on Capitol Hill back in late 22. And it's like, hey, y'all are doing a fine job, keep it up, because, compared to the rest of the world, we're the shining star for sure.

Ted Stank:

Yeah. So last quarter GDP growth was 3%. Last month's inflation was 2.4%. The labor market is softening a bit, but not like 6, 9, 10%. Actually it's at 4.2%. Unemployment was the last numbers. Consumer confidence is at about 70, which is kind of right in there. Manufacturing orders were up a bit over September. They're still lower than they've been, but they're kind of coming back up Right now again, given the amount of uncertainty we have in the environment with the presidential election things are not looking bad and I'm going to put in an editorial comment here.

Tom Goldsby:

I'm just. I cannot wait till the election season is traveling. You're just completely inundated. I was in Arizona a few weeks ago and there's nothing but election ads on the airwaves and just plastered everywhere. Here in Tennessee. I'm going to go ahead and put some bets down if I could, but I don't think they would pay out much, given the Vegas odds, so it's not even worth the effort. But if you are in one of those swing states, god bless you. Well, hopefully those ads will cease at some point very soon.

Ted Stank:

Well, I recently learned from my TV that the congressperson from our little district here in Eastern North Carolina is personally responsible for the immigration crisis. Fentanyl, china trade pretty much all of that Pretty powerful person. I never realized that congressperson from Eastern North Carolina had all that power.

Paul Fortunato:

That's amazing.

Ted Stank:

Hey, something else that's happened since we talked Tom. I think it was the weekend that we had our last podcast was the weekend that Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina. Since then, hurricane Milton hit Florida. Total devastation of those areas. So clearly, from a supply chain standpoint, it's something I think we need to mention that regionally we have to continue to be on high alert for regional disruptions like weather-induced disruptions, big one from Hurricane Helene. Asheville, north Carolina, is a wonderful city If you haven't been there before. A lot of great craft breweries, but also the single Pfizer plant for saline, and so across the United States we're actually holding on elective surgeries because we don't have enough saline to meet.

Tom Goldsby:

Well, and, to that point, the reason why Pfizer probably felt fairly comfortable putting their sole saline facility there is that Western North Carolina has been relatively free of cataclysmic storms. And some people thought climate change wasn't affecting the areas that far deep into Carolina out of Hurricane Alley and so forth, but I think that's the world we live in now. There is no such thing as a safe haven from climate change.

Ted Stank:

Absolutely, and you know, I was in Knoxville on that Friday when the storm came through and we expected to get it over top of us. Over top of us and it shifted about 50 miles east the day of, and the massive destruction because of all those rains that came down in the mountains of East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Quite a tragedy, but you're right, tom. So again, I mean, if there's a theme for this boy, if you don't have a dynamic risk management strategy in place, you need to get one.

Tom Goldsby:

So you're absolutely right, ted, a lot of hardship there in North Carolina, but it does occur to me that there's a lot of great stuff happening in Western North Carolina, in fact, the company we're going to feature today is based right there.

Ted Stank:

So why do you say we transition? Yeah, let's do that, tom. Today we're going to feature a really interesting topic to us. We're going to bring in a few guests, one of them our own, paul Fortunato, one of our faculty, as well as Lori Marr and Riley Clayton with Albemarle Corporation. The topic is a senior level project management class that we have at University of Tennessee in our undergraduate program and Paul directs that class and works with a number of companies on student-directed projects with industry. Paul is not your run-of-the-mill faculty. Paul, while he is on faculty with us in the University of Tennessee Supply Chain Management Program is a former North American Manufacturing Director and Knoxville Site Leader for Dow Chemical and I first met Paul in that capacity when we would bring student teams over to visit their facilities. Paul, welcome, great to have you with us, glad to be here. Lori Marr is Director of Supply Chain Center of Excellence and Strategic Planning for Albemarle Corporation. Lori, welcome, great to have you join us as well.

Lori Maurer:

Thank you, nice to be here.

Ted Stank:

And Riley Clayton is Logistics and Supply Chain Manager with Albemarle, but also one of our wonderful University of Tennessee Supp chain management undergraduate graduates. So, Riley, great to have you with us. Thank you.

Riley Clayton:

Thank you for having me.

Ted Stank:

Hey, Paul, you want to tell us a little bit about your background and then a little bit about this class and how you came to be involved with it.

Paul Fortunato:

Yeah, it's all your fault, Ted. Actually, just so folks realize, be careful when you speak with Ted, you don't know where it's going to go.

Ted Stank:

Folks realize, be careful when you speak with Ted, you don't know where it's going to go. Yeah, we have a recruiting program that we call the Amoeba, where, if you shake my hand, before you know it, my arm is around your back and then you're working for us.

Paul Fortunato:

Exactly what happened. I worked for Dow Chemical, like you mentioned, for 36 years. I retired 2018, I think it was and you were speaking with my daughter, who was in your class. You say Fortunato. I think I know a Fortunato. Sure enough, there it is. But you found out that I had just retired from working in the chemical industry. I was always in manufacturing or supply chain for my whole career and I had an opportunity to often invite your classes to my factory in Knoxville and I always enjoyed speaking with the students. So when you gave me a chance to come, perhaps get involved, I thought, well, I'd be a guest lecturer. No, you sucked me into being an actual instructor for a whole class. I had no idea I would want to do that in retirement. Well, that was six years ago and I love it. Who knew? I would love actually working with students, and usually seniors, which is great, which is what I'm doing this year again. Again, all your fault, ted.

Ted Stank:

Well, it's great to have you with us. Paul Lori want to say hi.

Lori Maurer:

Yeah, my name is Lori Maurer. I've been with Album Moral for almost six years now. Grew up in supply chain, mostly in the S&OP world A lot of focus on demand planning, supply planning, inventory management, a little bit of warehousing, a little bit of production planning. So I'm really excited to talk to you guys today.

Ted Stank:

Great, great to have you with us and Riley Clayton.

Riley Clayton:

So I started at Albemarle about a year ago, a year and a half ago now. I actually graduated, obviously, like we said, from the University of Tennessee Supply Chain Department in May of 2023. I was in Paul's first cohort of the class we're going to be talking about today, where I was funny enough partnering up with Album Moral and Lori, to be exact. So obviously it went really well for me. Happy where I am, I'm happy to talk to you guys today.

Ted Stank:

It's great to have you all with us, thank you. So, paul, you want to tell us a little bit about this project course.

Paul Fortunato:

Sure, Again, I've been doing it for three years now and it wasn't my brainchild, that's for sure, but I was able to take over again some folks who put together a really strong program, I think. And it's not your typical class. You said I'm not a typical academic. I'm sure not. And this is not your typical academic type class. You know, my background was chemical engineering and we used to have this senior class called unit ops where you got involved with real pumps and real pipes and maybe a distillation column.

Paul Fortunato:

Well, that's how I kind of put this class together. That's how I run this class. I let the students actually work on real-world projects that we get from companies and they're real supply chain projects, and we set the students up in teams of four or five. And we set the students up in teams of four or five and through the whole semester they work on usually an improvement project in the supply chain world, Anything from the beginning of procurement down to that final mile delivery to a customer, anything in between, Up to the companies. And I guide the students. I don't teach a whole lot, I guide them through the process.

Ted Stank:

It's turned out to be for a lot of students, kind of a game changing opportunity for them. So, Laura, you're involved from the Albemarle side as the company representative. Tell me about your experiences with the course and what are the kind of things that keep you coming back.

Lori Maurer:

My experience with the course was a little hesitant to start off, but once we got through that first cohort I was all in. We had a great first cohort and obviously we got Riley out of it, so I couldn't have asked for a better experience. It's definitely not a typical what I would call an intern experience. I would call it all hands on deck. I mean, the teams really take the project that we give them and they dig in hard. It's been a really great experience for us. It's helped us, it's helped them. They get great exposure to a lot of different areas of the company and we get a great fresh view of problems that we're working on at the time and, as we all know, supply chain is just a bunch of problem solving. So it's been a great experience. I'm really excited about this third cohort. We're about probably three quarters of the way through and they are really heading in the right direction. So it's been a great experience.

Ted Stank:

So as the leader from the company perspective, you get to frame the project. I'm assuming you work with Paul to try to figure out exactly what that project is.

Lori Maurer:

Yep, we sure do. We started off with network optimization and Riley can give you a little bit more detail about that. Their cohort went through a whole network optimization project. They got to talk to people from multiple departments. We walked away with a solid project that we could then take into our own procedures and processes, so we got a lot out of that project for them, and then we moved.

Lori Maurer:

The second cohort was a like a sustainability type project, so we had some co-products that we needed to be able to automate movements through the system, and that cohort really took us outside of our normal thought process. So their focus was thinking outside of the box, bringing some project potential to that and getting us sort of out of a rut with that project. This third project is sort of a big one for us. We need to automate our supply planning process and the SNOP process. So right now our planners are in Excel. Everything is manual and while we have a system, we're going to be using it. In the gap between now and then we need something that's better for the planners. So they've been focusing on getting a project set up for us where we can automate some of the data input and just have a better output for us. That's a lot faster for scenario building things like that.

Ted Stank:

That's very exciting. So, riley, I assume you had an internship before you went into this project, or did you not?

Riley Clayton:

I did, yeah, I think I'd say probably right in the middle of it, when I started Paul's class. It was DeRoyal in Knoxville, there in Powell, so it was medical supplies. I got to work a lot in supply planning and kind of see how their planners worked, and so it's been a very interesting connect thus far. It obviously started there, yeah, talk with Album Oral, connect with Album Oral, and then you know I'm very involved with the S&OP team and obviously this project where we're looking at kind of deep diving into the S&OP process and improving, you know, making it more efficient for our planners in general. So it's a full circle moment for me for sure.

Tom Goldsby:

That's really cool that you went from being the student to now being the advisor on the company side of things.

Ted Stank:

Oh, are you the advisor this year To me?

Riley Clayton:

and Laurie's tag company side of things. Oh, are you the advisor this year, timmy and Lori tag team? It most definitely. But I've been involved in both of the projects that we've done with UT since I left. It's been probably one of the most rewarding things I could see, because I think I do have a pretty unique perspective from the student side. I know kind of how Paul's class is formatted as well as what we want of them. So hopefully you know we're doing a good job about making it manageable for them, but also projects of substance and things that are going to help them and you know they'll carry through for when they graduate in May.

Ted Stank:

Well, that's very cool. So you weren't green. At least you had experience getting your hands dirty in industry. Because I can only imagine if I were a senior undergrad, in August of my senior year graduating in May, getting a really complex project like this put on my lap and being expected to deliver value for a company partner.

Paul Fortunato:

That's exactly what we're trying to do, though, ted. I try to make this class feel as close as I can to a work environment. So when students go to work it isn't the first time they felt that, and for some students it is, especially when we were, I guess, say, riley, back to your cohort that came through a lot of those students were on the edge of that whole COVID mess that students went through where there weren't internships, so that I tried to give them, in some ways, a bit of an internship. But this is beyond, I think Lori mentioned. This is more than an internship, and I try to make it that way and we push them hard. And for those who feel like it's too much, I'm saying guys, this is work, this is what it's going to be like when you get out. So that's part of the plan actually.

Ted Stank:

And Paul, you act as kind of the project advisor to them. Obviously, you're not working the projects, but you're giving them insights on how to work the project.

Paul Fortunato:

Yes, I like to tell especially new companies that I recruit to bring into this class, because I need about 12 a semester. That's a chore for me, that's what I do on the off semesters, but I tell them, folks, you do the what with the students, I do the how when it comes to running a project. So I don't do the work. Matter of fact, I try hard not to get into doing the work. I let the students do the work with the company. I basically show them the steps of project management. You can go to a whole course in project management and get certified in it. Well, students aren't going to be at that level, but I give them those industry best practices on what's a project, how do you work as a project team member? What's it like to be a team member in a working environment? And for a lot of them it's the first time they've seen that.

Ted Stank:

You know, Paul, I'm going to sing your praises and the praises of our other professors of practice who have come to us from a career in industry. I could teach that class and probably contribute some value, but nothing compared to the kind of value you bring to the table with your vast industry background and helping people in their early 20s understand how to manage a project and bring it to completion with value add.

Paul Fortunato:

Well, I'm told that's one of the reasons why they wanted someone like me to do this. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but I could get it now. The other professor who teaches is Mary Long. She has a similar kind of background. She came out of industry. Mike Burnett, he gave birth to this whole class. He came out of the industry world too.

Paul Fortunato:

So it does, I think, add to, I think, the value of the class that what we do is what we probably did when we worked. I mean real work, not teach. One thing I love and she's still doing it Riley calls me Paul. That's one of the things I do in class. I tell them look, don't call me Professor Fortunato or Dr Fortunato. Nothing could be further from the truth, dr Fortunato. I roll my eyes but I say when you're at work you're going to call your boss probably by their first name, so call me by my first name. It's hard for some students, but after you get used to it, hopefully it's what you'll get used to in the work world. And Riley's still doing it. It's wonderful. I smiled when she did it.

Ted Stank:

I do the same, Paul. I ask my students to call me by the first name for the same reason.

Tom Goldsby:

That gives us a sense for what, paul, you're looking for in a project, and I know that scoping something that fits inside of our 14-week semester is a bit of a challenge for one thing. But I was just curious if Lori can maybe speak a little bit about what they're looking for. As a corporate sponsor of the program and company participant, how do you all decide what to bring to Paul and students?

Lori Maurer:

It really depends on what's going on at the time within the supply chain group. So we obviously keep a backlog or a roadmap of all the projects that we're working on, and out of those you have some baby projects that aren't in scope of the larger projects, and so we look around at our roadmap and we take a look at anything that's connected to that that we need some help on, and then we narrow down after we talk to the other leaders within supply chain. So we typically collaborate on that and say, hey, we're thinking about doing XYZ project, what do you guys think? Here's what we're thinking of scoping. And then, once we get agreement amongst the team, then we send that over to Paul and he reviews it and we talk about clarifying expectations and we go from there.

Paul Fortunato:

And if I could add a little bit to that, I often tell companies yes, I want a real world project for the students to work on. And I tell them you've got to get it done in 14 weeks. It can't carry over, so it's got to be the right size. But at the same time I'll tell them look, if there's a project that you wish you could do but you didn't have enough resources to do it, throw it at us. Often, if you can get it in the right size of scope, the students will have the time and they can dig into it. And I said and don't be surprised, don't underestimate how much they can do. And I've yet to find a project and I've done 35, 36 of them now where the students haven't been able to really hit the ground with every one of them. Now, some of them we had to shrink a little bit, some of them actually I think Laurie, maybe it was last year's we added to it halfway through the semester- and yeah, we did.

Paul Fortunato:

I mean, their heads did not explode, came close, but they were excited to work on even more.

Lori Maurer:

Yeah, they knocked it out of the park and everybody wants to work on sustainability right now, so it was a pretty exciting project for them. They did a great job.

Paul Fortunato:

Yeah, they did a great job, and there's quite a bit of flexibility to what they're able to do too. So I tell companies don't be too worried about it, throw it at it, I'll help you, I'll get you through the process, and usually after they've done the first one, they got a great idea of how to carry it forward.

Ted Stank:

So there's another element to this that I want to dive into a little bit, about the fact that Riley is sitting here now as a member of the Album Art team and having worked with Lori two years ago. Lori talk a little bit about the role that these projects play from your talent recruitment perspective. I mean, obviously you get a chance to work with some really sharp students for 14 weeks and get to know them better, and that's obviously a lot more effective than a 30 minute interview with anyone could be.

Lori Maurer:

Oh, definitely, because you can very quickly pick out the students who are eager to try to solve the project or solve the problem. So you can see who are the schedulers, who are the ones that really think through the project and know what questions to ask. And one of the biggest things I look for is who in this group is going to ask those pointed questions to really get to the root cause of the issue. You know, if you don't understand something, ask the question. There's always a couple that stick out. That's how we got Riley. Riley stuck way out of the crowd. We were really happy to bring her on the team. She's been a great addition. Everybody she works with just really loves her. She's a hard worker. So that's what we're looking for, and as a company, we have a big focus on excellence in recruiting and excellence in supply chain. So it's a big focus for us in the upcoming couple of years is to make sure we get the right candidates in the supply chain roles that can bring expertise. So Riley was a perfect example of that.

Ted Stank:

That's fantastic, riley, from your perspective. Clearly, you probably had opportunities. Right, you said you did turn with DeRoyal. Our students, our best students, who have done internships and done well in school, often have multiple opportunities. How did working on a project with Album Moral influence your decision to go to work for Album Moral?

Riley Clayton:

Quite a bit actually. I mean, obviously, lori and someone else in our Album Moral team were my project managers, which, simple enough, I really enjoyed the personality and the project that was handed to us most definitely. I don't know, I think we touched on a little bit at the beginning, but my cohort was a network optimization project. My current role is focusing on network optimization and inventory optimization, so my interest was already peaked there at the beginning when they handed it to us. But I think also it was the fact that they didn't shy away from it was a very good size project for us to take on, and especially Paul.

Riley Clayton:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was the first semester of this class. This was the first time companies had been partnered with these student groups. So they didn't shy away from handing us a larger project and they kind of let us take it in the way that we wanted to. I mean, we got to explore different avenues. They helped us and guided us in a way, and as did Paul.

Riley Clayton:

But we were lucky enough to be handed a large data set and said, hey, go into this data set, go into these files and figure out where the problems are, where are opportunities for optimization and efficiency and things like that, and I think that was the thing that stood out the most, I would say, is they weren't afraid of asking for those outside perspectives and the fresh eyes and the new ideas and they really took it. And obviously, like Lori said, that was something that they took away from that project. Even after I finished my last semester of college. They took that and brought that to leadership. So it was the idea that something that we were doing as seniors in college made a difference at a company as large and impactful as Album Moral is.

Ted Stank:

I'm sitting here beaming OK, thinking of the effectiveness of this program and seeing one of our recent grads like you doing such great things, Paul, you get to see this multiple times a year. What is your perspective on where students go in August to where they are in December when they're done? What does the value add to them from a professional standpoint?

Paul Fortunato:

Well, I like how the ones who really immerse themselves and most do you know the bell shaped curve. It's in every, every part of life. You always see it. But you see the bell shaped curve in class too. But you see the bell-shaped curve in class too. But by and large, you get that team and you show that team how they as a group have got to be successful.

Paul Fortunato:

You watch them grab onto that, because a lot of the students most of the students had worked in a team setting. So watching them change from individuals to an effective team through the course of the semester, I think it's something that's going to help them as they get out. So that's a transformation that I see. I also love to see and Riley's team was like this, okay, and I've had many like this too, so I guess it works. It wasn't just a one and done, but I like when the team starts using the terms like our warehouse and our customers, when they take that kind of ownership of their project and they start internalizing it to saying that like we are going to be successful or we are going to drive this program and the our company, then you know they've got it, which is what you want to see from the folks you hire and I like to see them make that transition from student to actual walk-all worker in this process, and that's what happens in this class, I think.

Tom Goldsby:

That is so awesome. And again, that all happens inside the course of one semester. Right and to your point, we are working on students to make them the best versions of themselves throughout this program, but then they come together in a team. That must be really rewarding to see that by the end of semester.

Paul Fortunato:

Well, they have their struggles too. This is not all smiles, ok, and everyone understands the problems of working in teams and what could happen and the students come in as true individuals and I actually am surprised, you know, coming into the program Most of the students don't know other students. They don't know their team members for the most part. So that's part of the process in 14 weeks to knit them into a team and understanding that's what it's going to be like and the struggles you have as individuals. You've got to overcome those to be a successful team. 90% of all my teams, I'd say, are really successful. There you got the couple others that struggle, so we use those. You know what could go wrong in a project team. I'll make that the learning that they get out of the project that they worked on. It happens. It happens in the real world.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, Laurie. I looked at the summaries of these projects and a couple of them at least had a global perspective to it. What is the global implications of some of these projects and the people working on the teams?

Lori Maurer:

Yeah, no, that's a great question because Riley's team, for example they were pretty restricted in the amount of time that they had to work with their main contact, so she was located in Budapest, hungary, and they're five to six hours. Depending on daylight savings time, they can be five to six hours ahead of us. So her cohort really had quite a few early mornings, which in a couple of cases was tough after a UT game. So, but they pulled through, they showed up, they worked hard and you know they got to experience working with not only different time zones but also different cultures and sometimes that can be tough, learning how to identify what is something that is cultural versus just personality. And, like you said, paul, working in a new team is that's getting a new job. I mean you have to learn people's personalities and work through difficult personalities your entire life. So that's being in a company like that, and I think it's a really good experience for them to learn how, not only with different personalities but also cultures across the globe, how to balance that and be flexible.

Tom Goldsby:

And Riley. Meanwhile, you were a student in Knoxville, tennessee, and working on one of these projects with global implications. What was it like for you to have that experience of working with a company contact on the other side of the world?

Riley Clayton:

It was obviously very different from anything that I had ever experienced, and I think I want to speak for my group, but I don't think any of them had experienced anything like that before.

Riley Clayton:

To kind of circle back to what I said earlier, they didn't shy away from giving us a project that meant something to them and something that they were. You know, leadership was looking into SNOP, was looking into different groups within Albemarle, was looking into in different regions as well, and so you know we had a lot of meetings with people in Budapest as well as in, you know, our China location, so those time zones were a bit difficult to navigate sometimes, but it was also a very insightful way to look at things, because I do that all the time now, so I get to work with people in different time zones and different cultures, and you know to understand we need to balance things as we go as well. You know, like we have night meetings, we have morning meetings. You know we need to be mindful and respectful of everyone's time as well, as there's language barriers and things like that, so it's obstacles that you have to overcome in the workplace when you leave college, and I think I just got a taste of it before everyone else did.

Tom Goldsby:

And I think it really, really helped me in the long run and again to then take on full-time employment with that project company. You had to feel like you had a certain home court advantage, knowing that business, its operations and the scope of operations.

Riley Clayton:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think Lori and Kinga who is the other project manager I think they both did a very good job about immersing us into the business as a whole from the very beginning. So when I did go to work for them about two weeks after graduation it was all fresh on the mind and I do think that there was some sort of home field advantage to where I had heard a lot of the terminology before and I had met with a lot of people. I had heard a lot of those the terminology before and I had met with a lot of people. Lori was able to set up those interviews when I was a student in that group with a lot of the people that I work with today. I think in terms of familiarity it was definitely an advantage for me, for sure.

Ted Stank:

Yeah, you know, there's the old saying that you don't work for a company, you work for people, right, and at the end of the day, it is about the people that we spend an awful lot of time with at work. So, yeah, this would have to give you a great leg up on the job and understanding your team, and Lori, as a hiring manager, gives you a confidence level in who you're bringing in as well.

Lori Maurer:

Yeah, definitely. We had exposure to Riley and the rest of the team and even with the second cohort it was excellent getting to have exposure to them and understanding how they could possibly fit into the team. It was excellent getting to have exposure to them and understanding how they could possibly fit into the team. Personality wise, work style wise all of those things have to be a good fit. So it's good to have way more than a 30 minute interview with someone to figure out if they're going to be a good fit. So it's kind of perfect.

Paul Fortunato:

Another benefit for companies and I've seen this a couple of times where the project leader that the company chooses for the students to work with. They may be a relatively low level person Maybe they've never been a manager before and they get a chance to manage a group of, I'll say, interns and to sort of learn the leadership role in a fairly easy environment. Again, I'm willing to help out there too. Not only do I love helping the students, I enjoy helping these younger folks in companies okay, to gain some experience. So I've seen a company or two do that and I think it's worked out well for them in that role too.

Ted Stank:

You know everybody, there's nothing I love better than a virtuous cycle right when we've got a win for the company, a win for the students involved and a win for our program in terms of being able to prepare students to really hit the ground running when they get into industry. Paul, if I'm a manager listening to this podcast and I want to get involved, how do I go about doing that?

Paul Fortunato:

Usually we take our members from the Institute, our Global Supply Chain Institute. They're our first call out there and we'll ask for those who want to get involved and what I'll generally do is I've got a long email list and I'll send an email out. Mary Long does the same thing before she gets ready for her semester and we'll pull in recruits that way. That's generally what happens. Often what I'll ask is at the end of the semester, through the 10 or 12 companies I'm working with hey, would you consider doing one a second or third time? I would like to do it again and we'll often put them at the top of the list, but there's always an opening. I think I had about three openings this year, four openings actually this year that we work to recruit companies to come on. It's a chaotic time for us to do it. There's no one set path. But if you can let somebody at the institute level know that you'd like to be involved at your member company, just let us know and I'll be contacting you.

Ted Stank:

Fantastic. Paul Lori Riley, thank you so much for your time with us today. I think this was a really great session with a lot of interesting implications for all of us in education and trying to get value created for those companies that hire our students. Tom, I think you probably have an email that folks that might be interested in this project course might be able to send something to.

Tom Goldsby:

That's right. As always, our listeners can reach us at gsci at utkedu, and, as always, we welcome your comments and questions. In fact, Ted, as we are launching our third season of the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but what do you say? We field a listener question in the next episode. What do you think?

Ted Stank:

I would love to do that. Listeners, please send us some questions.

Tom Goldsby:

All right, we'll take one question and, by the way, in a couple of weeks we're going to be recording that next session at the Supply Chain Forum, looking forward to entertaining some of our guests there. We're going to talk about making work meaningful, meaningful engagement at work, so it's going to be a great topic and we look forward to being live next time around.

Intro/Outro:

Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management. If you enjoyed the episode, subscribe today on your favorite listening platform to get all of our episodes as soon as they drop, and don't forget to take a moment to leave us a rating. Have any questions, thoughts or feedback? We'd love to hear from our listeners. Email us at gsci at utkedu. Join us next time as we continue pulling back the curtain on the world of supply chain, educating and entertaining you along the way. Until then, listeners.

People on this episode