UA Logistics Team Impresses Industry

A team of undergraduate students from the University of Arkansas placed second at a recent logistics case competition in Denver.

The contest, deemed Operation Stimulus, was sponsored by the Denver Transportation Club as part of its 28th supply chain forum Jan. 28-30. The UA team was one of 14 from the United States and Canada.

The team consisted of transportation and logistics students Ashleigh Toatley, Brik Heil, Kameron Wilson, Sabrina Wade and Yuki Hatano.

“Some of these students have very strong personalities and yet throughout the presentation their teamwork and support of each other was quite remarkable,” faculty sponsor Jim Crowell said. Crowell also is the director of the Supply Chain Management Research Center, which sponsored the UA team.

All the teams were presented the same case in advance of the event, then presented a “twist” and given an hour to incorporate that twist into their presentations to a panel of industry-related judges. The UA team’s case involved a global shampoo manufacturer with a New York City manufacturing facility and a San Diego distributor. Western U.S. growth was in double digits, and the students were challenged to meet this demand from a global sourcing perspective.

The team proposed to open a Maquiladora factory, a duty-free facility, in Tijuana, Mexico, just 15 miles south of San Diego, to add to the global manufacturing network already in place.

“Their solution was global, not only addressing the growing western U.S. market demand, which was the key solution requested, but also recognizing the importance of global contingency planning; the ability to respond to supply chain interruptions of all types such as: security, governmental, changes in regional market demand, and so on,” Crowell said. “While we took second place, the distance between the top two teams was ever so close.”

A team from the University of North Florida took top honors.