The Moore School’s undergraduate operations and supply chain program now ranks No. 3 in North America, according to global research firm Gartner.
The ranking comes as supply chain snarls continue to cripple the global economy, and companies seek solutions to resolve the bottlenecks that threaten their bottom line.
“The Moore School couldn’t be prouder of our undergraduate operations and supply chain program climbing two spots to rank No. 3 on the Gartner top 25 list,” Darla Moore School of Business Dean Peter Brews said. “The analytical skills we teach our students, along with the intensive consulting projects students collaborate on with Fortune 500 companies’ executives, are unmatched in most operations and supply chain programs.”
The USC undergraduate program’s ranking leapt two spots from the 2020 biennial list and 10 spots from the 2018 list. Gartner ranks the top 25 universities according to their program scope, industry value and program size.
“The Moore School’s focus for the undergraduate operations and supply chain program is to prepare students to learn the challenges and nuances of supply chains and how to go into their first jobs with the ability to add value to their organizations immediately,” said Sanjay Ahire, co-director of the Moore School’s Operations and Supply Chain Center and professor of operations and supply chain management. “Our faculty teach a deeply analytical curriculum that informs students on global supply chain and operations strategies. Our hands-on approach with mentors and corporate partners gives our graduates the skills and confidence needed to be successful and build momentum in their careers.”
Each semester, the faculty lead senior student groups that develop capstone consulting projects with Operations and Supply Chain Center partner organizations, such as Atrium Health, BMW, Coca-Cola Bottling, Continental Tire, Cummins, Delta Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, McLeod Health, Michelin, Nephron Pharmaceuticals, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Siemens, Sonoco, Trane, UPS and Walmart.
The teams explore how the partners can optimize their supply chain networks, remove waste and procedural inefficiencies and implement new process strategies, ultimately presenting their findings to company executives. Since the projects began more than a decade ago, the student groups have yielded more than $315 million in collective recurring cost savings for partners.
Moore School operations and supply chain students also compete to earn an industry-validated Sonoco-USC Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification, which gives students advanced problem-solving skills and the statistical tools needed to effectively lead process improvement projects. Close to 1,200 undergraduate and more than 300 graduate students from the university have earned this unique certification through the program.
All of these strengths have enabled the operations and supply chain program to place well-trained talent with leading employers. Examples of those organizations include 3M, Accenture, Amazon, Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, BMW, Coca-Cola, Collins Aerospace, Continental Tire, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Manhattan Associates, Mercedes-Benz, McKinsey & Company, Nephron, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rolls Royce, Siemens, Sonoco and Tesla.