MPRINT: Presentation lab part of gift from supply chain logistics partner
Collaborating to share employee needs among industry partners leads to mutual benefits. That’s what Dr. Frank Adams, with the Mississippi State University College of Business, found when perusing the aisles at the MSU Career Center’s twice-yearly expo.
“We have found a number of the heavy industrial companies have a need for business students with supply chain training, and that’s how we developed our latest relationship with PACCAR,” Adams said. He is the Ergon Professor of Supply Chain Logistics. “Every semester we walk the expo to see what everyone’s needs are. Thanks in part to that, we have a supply chain program with them coming to life. We were able to begin having students do six-month internships at PACCAR, and dozens of our students have been through it.”
PACCAR designs and manufactures premium commercial trucks under brands that include Kenworth, Peterbilt and DAF. The company has a tremendous presence in the Starkville area. Thanks to gifts from the PACCAR Foundation and from the PACCAR Engine Company, the business school was able to construct the PACCAR Supply Chain Logistics Seminar Suite, which was dedicated in October on the second floor of McCool Hall.
The communications laboratory-style facility PACCAR helped the college of business create is a multifunctional area in which supply chain students can deliver real-time logistical reports. The room has full electronic teleconferencing capabilities, a large-screen multi-functional computer and all the relevant technical requirements for remote participants.
“People have been conditioned to make these presentations by reading bulleted points off of a PowerPoint slide,” Adams said. “We’re working to break them of that. The live case courses we teach here are real projects with real company issues in the real world. Academically, you can’t control the problem as well, but that’s part of the lesson too. Sometimes, you can’t control the problem. Students and everyone else involved in these classes recognize the immense, incomparable value.
“We’ve been very aggressive going after these kinds of experiences for students to have in college, and PACCAR is a great partner with MSU in many ways.”