In 2016, Western Michigan University’s undergraduate program in Integrated Supply Management was again ranked in the Top 10 for undergraduate supply chain education in the U.S. overall. In 2015, Software Advice ranked the ISM undergraduate program #2 in the U.S. for emphasizing technology, software, and quantitative tools in curriculum.
The unique curriculum of the ISM program is the result of integrating supply chain, information technology, continuous improvement, and engineering curriculum from five departments across two colleges. The pedagogy stresses the integration of supply chain activities via information technology and the application of supply chain concepts and tools through industry projects, internships, consulting, and applied research.
The program continues to evolve through continuous reevaluation of curriculum, including significant input from industry partners. The goal of the program is to develop supply chain professionals who can create competitive advantage for their organization in cost, time and quality by integrating supply functions into an efficient value chain network. These value chain networks are demand driven, right sourced, and work end-to-end to respond to customers’ ever changing needs. This is the future of supply chains—flexible, agile and responsive—and this is where WMU’s Integrated Supply Management program is leading the way.
Recent graduates of the program are job ready from day one, often for positions above entry level, and are prepared to take complete ownership for their decisions and strategy.
The WMU Board of Trustees has established a Center for Integrated Supply Management to be housed in the Haworth College of Business. The Center creates a focal point for Integrated Supply Management education, research, and resources. The purpose of the space is to stimulate communication, collaboration, and innovation among faculty across disciplines, among business executives across industries, and among undergraduate and graduate students across fields of study. Such diverse interaction provides a tool for inducing cultural change, accelerating innovation and enhancing the learning process, thus moving supply management thinking to the next level of performance.
Bronco Force provides consultative services to address the supply chain challenges confronting organizations of all sizes and complexity levels. Faculty and students involved in Bronco Force determine the best methods to solve those problems. We have worked with such diverse partners as the City of Detroit, Impact Label Corp., Command Electronics, and Stryker Corp.—to name a few.