The College of Engineering and the Poole College of Management at N.C. State united for the first time to offer a new graduate program hoping to bring business management to engineering.
The master of supply chain engineering and management program is a 10-month-long graduate program aimed at students who just graduated or plan to graduate soon.
The idea for the program was introduced in 2008 when the former CEO of Caterpillar, James Owens, donated $2.2 million to the College of Management with the intent of expanding the supply chain emphasis at N.C. State.
“There are programs that have supply chain concentrations in engineering and management but there was nothing that bridged the gap between the two,” said Russell King, co-director of the program and a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at N.C. State.
Supply chain management emphasizes the movements of goods from suppliers to retailers, including storage of raw materials and how goods get from their original point to the hands of the consumer.
“That’s kind of where there has been a gap. In the industrial systems, we teach students supply chain management, but they don’t have the business acumen to see the bigger picture,” King said. “On the businesses side, they have a bigger picture but not the quantitative engineering skills. We want people who have a sense of what it’s all about as well as the technical skills.”
Donald Warsing, co-director of the program and an associate professor of operations and supply chain management at N.C. State, said what the new program hopes to accomplish.
“We are specifically targeting engineering and science students,” Warsing said. “The idea of the degree is that someone with a bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline can then extend their technical training and at the same time develop business skills in that area, specifically supply chain management.”
Caterpillar, a machine manufacturer on the Standard and Poor’s 500 list, a stock market index, proposed the idea for the program.
“I think anytime that you have industry coming to the University and requesting a degree, it’s always exciting. You know it’s something that they want and that’s kind of exciting to the universities to respond to those needs and deliver the programs that are of value,” King said.
Supply chain management is one of the fastest growing fields with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting about a 26 percent job growth in the next several years. King and Warsing both said they estimated that the degree may reign in a salary of about $70,000-80,000 for graduates in that program.
“I think a lot of companies recognize the benefit of having professionals that are focused on efficiency, reducing costs in business and that help support the business in terms of simultaneously reducing costs and increasing revenues,” Warsing said. “This is what the students will be trained in. They will have the analytical skills to become more efficient.”
However, despite the optimistic outlook, it is uncertain if many students will be able to get into the program.
“Our plan is to accept 12 students in the first year of the program, but that will move up to 20 students each year,” King said.
Additionally, King said that he anticipates seeing student GPAs in the 3.5 range or higher even though 3.0 is the minimum GPA requirement to apply. The application deadline is March 15, and at least one person has applied for the program.
“This degree program is going to have some level of success. There are industry partners telling us this technical skill set should be in very high demand,” Warsing said.
The program is unique in another aspect since it is also based around a partnership between industry and the University.
“One of the course requirements in the degree program is Supply Management Practicum, which is basically a course credit,” King said. “The idea is that students will be working on a project that is specified by one of the companies involved in the program.”
Caterpillar is one of the of the new graduate program’s biggest supporters, but it is also joined by about 20 other companies from the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative that participates with N.C. State during supply chain management activities.
The degree targets students from a technical background such as industrial engineering although students with quantitative skills in other majors may be considered.
“I think this is a great opportunity,” Warsing said. “It’s a fifth year beyond your undergraduate degree with a chance to really build an analytical toolkit in an area that is a very strong in business. I think it’s something that’s really worth considering.”
