Smeal College Hosts IBM ISC/University Semi-Annual Symposium
On July 25 - 27, 2005, the Smeal College of Business hosted the IBM Integrated Supply Chain (ISC) Semi-Annual Symposium at University Park. This semi-annual symposium is part of a special partnership that IBM's ISC organization has developed with our department and four other research universities: Arizona State University's Department of Supply Chain Management in the W.P. Carey School of Business; The University College Dublin's Michael Smurfit School of Business; Michigan State University's Eli Broad Graduate School of Management; and the National University of Singapore .
ISC is one of the largest organizations in IBM, controlling over $40 billion of their annual spending. It focuses on strategic procurement, manufacturing, logistics, customer fulfillment, and supply chain strategy along with some significant human resources initiatives. IBM has pursued this consortium relationship to foster thought leadership through cross-university research and curriculum initiatives, to promote hiring of ISC of consortium graduates, and to support Executive Management Education on targeted topics.
Each university received a gift from IBM consisting of two IBM p650 multiprocessor computers, the i2 software suite, and other products including Websphere and Supply Chain Analyzer. The equipment and software are part of the new Supply Chain Lab on the 2nd floor of the Business Building.
The next symposium is scheduled for February 22-24, 2006 and will be hosted by Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.
