Aug 4, 2010 MAC-wide Conference call with Greg Holderfield

Agenda


 * Greg Holderfield Presentation and Q&A.
 * Networking Project update by Alex
 * Summer Connect 2010 Results
 * Onsite planning
 * Recognition of John Miniati's work
 * Weds Eve call is the new standard time
 * Roundtable

In attendance:

'''********** Minutes '''**********

Greg joined the call and addressed the questions posted by everyone.

Recruited to expand the design practice at McCormick. He left a VP role at Leo Burnett (ARC-side of the business). Clients range from Healthcare (Abbott, Amgen, etc), consumer electonics (Dell, MSoft), comsumer package goods (Clorox, etc), and also McDonalds and P&G.

Greg is an alumnus. Undergrad in Industrial Design from Champaign, IL.

Has role in Seigel Design institute.

Teaching responsibilites, only grad level. There he build relationship with Dean Ottino. Was approached a year ago for this role as Co-Director. Was offered the position in the spring.

Has started about 1 month ago as director.

He had lead 2 integration projects that were very engaging. He learned a lot about MMM issues during that time.

Questions:

MMM Vision.

Introduction of design into the cir. has been fuzzy at best. Confusing to alumni base. Including faculty. The word “design” means many things to many people. For example: Chopra talks about design of services and operations. Greg intends to get an alignment of what Design really means to everyone. Clarity to the value proposition. Is it Logistics? Workflow? A hardware issue? Much needs to be defined more clearly. Had conversations with Kellogg representatives as well as Dean Ottino.

Greg wants to bring together the stakeholders together to get insight.

Promoting the program: Still trying to get a handle on how the University works. When Wally Hopp was Director, McCormick had a big influence. Now, outbound promotions are lead by Kellogg. Greg had meeting with Kellogg rep, and found that the two groups are very siloed and need to work more closely. Greg intends to bring these groups together for cohesion.

Students requested a Position Statement. Branding message. “Soul of MMM” was a student-lead project. Greg did see the activity. He met with one of the students in July. He also met with Tom Duncan (Kellogg) to discuss where this project will be going. This will be a priority and not be disregarded.

As far as balance between the two schools, there needs to be the correct balance of content. It needs to be respected on both sides. The Kellogg and McCormick faculty have very little interplay. This is partly due to the transition of directors.

Sunil Chopra will be returning as a faculty member teaching the first year core course. Sid D. used to teach this course. Greg is actively looking for design-oriented courses.

“Design” is the strategic definition. Systems design is a possible definition. Greg will be teaching his class in the winter. We need a more robust offering on the McCormick-side. This has been messaged to dean Ottino. Greg is bringing in outside people to teach. One class is a design research class.

Design is associated with McCormick.

Operations is associated with Kellogg.

The Factory Physics piece is very important. Yet, the McCormick side is to own the design cir.

Not about products-only.

The directors are looking into the question of “global supply chain” and there is interest. But, current students are less interested in Mfg.

Jim Sieleman: Supply chain used to be an elective in 2001. There wasn’t an emphasis at that time. In today’s world, managing the supply chain is highly relevant.

Greg recently interviewed the former Global Supply Chain manager from P&G to consider coming to teach.

Joe Urban offered to bring together supply chain practicianers across the alumni base for an advisory council on the topic.

Greg believes the management of the Design-vs-Ops definition was not managed as well as it could and does need direct attention. There are a lot of students very interested in bringing the Design piece into their Northwestern experience. Greg had a lot of conversations with students from both sides (design and ops). Some students want to have a Kellogg+Seigle design inst degree instead of Kellogg+McCormick. The conversation is very active. Greg wants to address it immediately, but the academic world is much slower. It will be an active discussion in the fall. We can’t make a shift for at least a year due to the academic schedule.

Collaboration with the Law School and Medical School are highly interesting. IP is a key area to consider. Prof Connelly has been approached on the topic. Kellogg dropped his class and McCormick took it up.

If we could have a smaller, tighter offering, we would be in better shape. There is little cross-communication across schools. McCormick didn’t know about the student club.

John Miniati is working with Mohan Sawheny on a product dev course. IP is presently not in the class, but John thought that was an interesting addition. Prof Jain sits next to his office and could be tapped to assist. John and Greg to follow up.

Greg’s teaching requirements have been significantly reduced in order for him to focus on being the co-director.

The program is financially sound. Support staff will be added. Steve Fischer’s role will be re-defined to be more proactive. Greg intends to leverage his professional connections to assist the program.

Greg is still refining what he will do with the alumni relationship.

Summer Connect in Chicago: Nam hosted it at his house on Aug 1st. About 20 people. A number of new admits.

Networking Project: Alex Reimer

Slow start. Summertime makes it difficult to work on this project. Had 2 training calls. We have 5 volunteer interviewers. Some have dropped off due to schedules and/or issue of confidentiality. Earlier this week the group was notified of their lists. The identities of the target alumni were serialized to maintain anonymity. Sept is the goal for completion. Calling 60 to 75 alumni. From ’93 to ‘09.

Recognition of John Miniati’s work on the MAC. He will be dropping off this year.

MMM Advisory Board is scheduled for Oct 20th. Plan on the Onsite for Oct 22nd.

Get Greg involved in agenda definition for the Onsite.