Whitman School collaborates with Staples on supply-chain initiative

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University (SU) is collaborating with Staples, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLS) on an initiative focused on the supply-chain field.

The Whitman School includes the H.H. Franklin Center for Supply Chain Management.

The partnership allows the Whitman School supply-chain faculty and students to analyze two initiatives, according to a news release the school distributed last week.

In the first project, Whitman faculty and students will analyze fulfillment operations and make recommendations regarding how Staples can further improve its inventory and distribution decisions.

“Staples already has an excellent distribution system, with the capability to deliver next-day to 96 percent of the United States’ population,” Burak Kazaz, SU professor of supply chain and executive director of the Franklin Center, contended in the news release.

Whitman faculty and students will analyze big data on customer orders and make adjustments in inventory-deployment decisions to create “further efficiencies,” the school said.

“Improving supply-chain operations in an already highly effective system [is] a daunting task,” Kazaz added.

In the second project, Whitman faculty and students are developing a new risk-assessment methodology to assess the risk exposure in the entire Staples supply chain.

When they complete the projects, Whitman faculty and students will present the “end result of both” to Staples senior leadership, the school said.

“Programs like the H.H. Franklin Center for Supply Chain Management and the work it is doing on behalf of Staples advance the thought capital of the supply-chain profession,” Don Ralph, senior vice president, supply chain and logistics at Staples, said in the news release.

Ralph is a previous winner of the Whitman School’s Salzberg Medallion, awarded for excellence in the field of transportation and supply-chain management.

Kazaz believes relationships, such as the one the Whitman School has with Staples, are the “wave of the future” for business programs, according to the news release.

 “The experiential learning opportunity allows students to solve real business problems to help corporations meet challenges. This makes our students more marketable when they graduate and it helps corporations find their next leaders,” said Kazaz.

The Whitman School says it is home to the nation’s first supply-chain management program.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com