News Release

MBA partnership doesn’t end with graduation

June 23, 2009

The educational partnership between Penn State Harrisburg’s MBA program and its students doesn’t end with graduation.

Those MBA professionals – more than 900 of them who reside in the Harrisburg area – create a comprehensive network of experience and assistance at the disposal of fellow grads and area firms facing corporate challenges.

MBA program director Richard Young says, “We take great pride in extending our resources to our graduates and to the entire regional business community. It’s part of Penn State’s mission of service. I tell new MBA students that they will graduate with a lot more knowledge, but also a dramatically expanded network of professionals in the area. And we encourage them to stay in touch.”

That Penn State Harrisburg MBA link recently proved beneficial for one area corporation seeking to improve its performance. The focus was on lean manufacturing, a concept for reducing unnecessary waste in a variety of business areas. In recent years, the concept has been applied in manufacturing firms, service companies, government, and the military, often with impressive results.

Daniel Mueller, a 2008 MBA graduate who is Superintendent of Manufacturing at Bayer Health Care in Myerstown, says, “We are continually looking for ways to improve our process with the lean manufacturing concept one of the ingredients.” As part of his effort to gain information, Mueller reached out to Dr. Richard Young, director of the MBA program.

Young relates, “Dan phoned me and explained he was trying to do something with lean manufacturing and wondered if I knew anyone who could lend a hand. I contacted students and graduates with two eagerly stepping forward to assist – Nicole Rank and Philip Heckert. Nicole has experience with lean efforts at The Hershey Company and Turkey Hill, where Phil is the controller, is involved in the concept.”

The extension of assistance to Mueller resulted in informal group meetings to discuss and share successes and failures with lean manufacturing. Mueller explains that Bayer has a corporate Operational Excellence Department which coordinates its efforts and the information provided by Rank and Heckert was helpful in identifying areas where waste can be reduced or eliminated. “Since we are non-competitors, we were able to delve deeper into the lean concept and share a lot of information.”

“The association with Penn State Harrisburg was so positive that we’re now deciding whether to create either an informal or formal discussion group of students, faculty, and grads to focus on other business and corporate challenges,” Mueller says.

“Bayer,” he explained, “faces competition on a global scale enhanced by foreign labor pool costs. Our focus is that to continue to compete in the global environment, we need to benchmark. Here are representatives from two world-class companies who must stay competitive as economic engines to enhance their local communities, brought together by Penn State Harrisburg to share knowledge with another world-class company on how to stay competitive.”

“Penn State Harrisburg has been great. When you can pick up a phone and question other professionals and world-class faculty, it’s wonderful!”