Smeal College of Business Team Wins Supply Chain Management Award
A team from the Penn State Smeal College of Business won the 2016 Global Supply Chain Management Initiative Inter-College Case Competition which took place at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management.
The Smeal team beat out two other schools to earn first place: the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and the third-place team from Washington University’s Olin Business School.
The team, comprised for first-year MBAs Greg Wommer, Mattson Wardy, Franziska Schmid, Jordan Crespo, and Ankush Agarwal earned the victory as one of six schools that advanced to the second phase of the competiton. Smeal is unique in that it offers supply chain management education beginning at the undergraduate level. Students can then advance to the masters level of the supply chain curriculum, and ultimately to the Ph.D. level.
This year’s case involved the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Global Supply Chain impact. The competition’s first phase was held in November of 2015, with students forming a presentation to address their solutions for the case.
After being chosen as one of the six finalists, teams were then faced with new questions and problems involving the case. The students were expected to build upon their initial presentations and to offer their solutions to the panel of judges. Participant Jordan Crespo acknowledged the advantages of participating in the competition: “It was very interesting working on a real life problem that was developing in the news as the competition progressed,” Crespo said. “The amount of time and research that we put into proposing a successful recommendation was extensive. We were very happy that it paid off.”
About the Author
Maggie Boccella
Maggie Boccella, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia, is a freelance writer, artist and photographer. She has consulted on various film and multimedia projects, and she also serves as a juror for the city's annual LGBTQIA Film Festival.
