An Ode to My Chevy

Good-bye, Chevy, my car of almost 20 years! They (the local public radio station) are coming to pick you up tomorrow to take you away. The photos have been taken, you have been cleaned, and the mourning has begun.

Growing up in Yonkers, New York, I thought that I could always be like Barbara Walters or Robert Moses and get away without getting a driver's license. I loved the busses, the subways, walking everywhere of interest and, later, flying when I was invited to give talks as an academic. And, I almost succeeded without getting a driver's license but life interfered. Nevertheless, stubbornly, I did everything in reverse: first, becoming a Full Professor at the Isenberg School of Management in bucolic Amherst, Massachusetts. (Ironically, my expertise and specialty are transportation and logistics but I figured I could be more objective by not knowing how to drive.) Then, after having a child, and, after 3 drivers' road tests with the last one with a female state police officer straight out of the academy and in a uniform, to boot, success! This "talent" seems to run in my family - it took my father 13 attempts to get his license and my mother never learned how to drive. I survived unofficial driver's ed lessons on Sundays with my daughter napping and with one of my Finance colleagues giving me instructions, complete with a cushion for the car seat (I am short) in a mall parking lot, and he on the ready with his blue exam books to grade my driving in. The reward for him was breakfast at the local Burger King - my treat, of course.

I waited as long as I could to buy a car and when my daughter was about to embark to kindergarten I got my Chevy Venture. Why a Chevy, you may ask?! It had to be a General Motors car since I had recently been appointed the John F. Smith Memorial Professor, a chaired professorship endowed by the then CEO and Chairman of the Board of General Motors, and named after his father, also an alum of my university. The vehicle gave me "lift," a terrific view driving to and from my daughter's school and provided me with some respite, when I tried to catch up on The New York Times while waiting for her through elementary school, and, afterwards, most of her high school, until she got her license. My Chevy  served as a neighborhood fort for children, a place that kids, including my own, would chatter in the back, fortified with snacks that I provided. Through its windows we saw the seasons, listened to music, car pooled for sports and other activities, and even had a few vacation drives.

For the past few years, you aging grand dame, my Chevy, have had no heat or air conditioning - sometimes my wet hair would freeze even on the short commute to teach my 8:30AM classes in the winter. You rarely did not start, though, and when I received an award from UMass with the coveted UMass park "any time, anywhere" parking pass, I would leave you in my favorite parking lot for days and nights on end, when I commuted on a weekly basis by bus and then subway to Harvard (the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) where I was on sabbatical as a Science Fellow. Even this past spring, when you, my dear Chevy, developed an oil leak, I, gently, nursed you along, with help from our neighborly mechanic.

Tomorrow, as you get towed away, Chevy, and a new vehicle takes your place in the garage, the glow from your headlights will linger; whatever parts you ultimately get disassembled into, remember, it was you that kept us company on the journey that is life. As you await disassembly and your final fate, remember the giggling girls that you ferried over time and space, who are now studying for their PhDs! It is the beginning of a new era - thank you for being you!

As much as I had hoped that my Chevy would have lasted 2 more years, it was not to be. But the memories will always be with us.

Sharing Successes and Thanks with Your Benefactor

I have been very lucky to not only have met the benefactor of my chaired professorship but to also have enough of a relationship with him that I can communicate and share experiences with him.

In 1998, I became the John F. Smith Memorial Professor at Operations Management at the Isenberg School of Management. I was the first female appointed to a chaired professorship in the University of Massachusetts system, consisting of 5 campuses, including the UMass Medical School in Worcester.

Part of having a chaired professorship, I believe, is stewardship, and that should entail not only, according to its definition, of:  responsible planning and management of resources, but also staying in touch with the benefactor/donor, if that is at all possible. The chaired professorship that I hold was made possible by John F. Smith Jr. or "Jack Smith," an alumnus of the Isenberg School of Management, class of 1960, who endowed the professorship in honor of his father, who was also a UMass Amherst alumnus, but of its Stockbridge School. Jack Smith Jr. was the chairman of the board of General Motors from 1996 to 2003 and the CEO from 1992 to 2000.  He has been a member of Delta's Board of Directors since 2000, so, clearly, transportation is in his "blood" and we have a common passion for operations management. What has always impressed me about Jack Smith, is his incredible intellect and memory as well as ideas for innovation.

Yesterday, I shipped off a package to Jack Smith, with two letters, one detailing some of the accomplishments of the Virtual Center for Supernetworks, that I founded and have directed since 2001, and our great students at the Isenberg School, and a holiday letter. I also enclosed in the package three books: Competing on Supply Chain Quality, co-authored with my former PhD student, Dr. Dong "Michelle" Li, Dynamics of Disasters: Key Concepts, Models, Algorithms, and Insights, co-edited with Professors Ilias S. Kotsireas and Panos M. Pardalos, and STEM Gems,  by Stephanie Espy, in which I was honored to be one of 44 inspiring female role models in STEM for my work on networks. All these books were published in 2016 so they should make for some pleasant holiday reading.

Jack Smith has come back to UMass and the Isenberg School on several occasions, since I became a chaired professor,  and we also have a classroom named in his honor. He, along with other luminaries, such as Ken Feinberg and Jack Welch, also UMass Amherst alums, serves as an honorary co-chair of the UMass Rising Campaign. A video for the campaign, in which I also speak, can be accessed here.

In fact, one of the seeds for supernetworks and our center germinated when Jack gave a talk at UMass and spoke about interfaces between telecommunications and transportation in the context of vehicle mobility and it was clear that networks of networks or supernetworks would be an area that would generate theory and applications for years to come, which it has! Our Supernetworks book, which I co-authored with Dr. June Dong was published in 2002.

Below are some photos taken on one of Jack's visits to the Isenberg School, when he visited the Supernetworks Lab. Many of the Center Associates featured in the photos, have since received their PhDs, and are now professors. Several, who were undergraduates then, such as David Soffer and Christina Calvaneso, are having fascinating professional careers in business.  A full list is available here.

This blogpost is also a thank you to Jack Smith, whose support has enabled us to have a thriving, award-winning  UMass Amherst INFORMS Student Chapter, a center that builds bridges and has collaborators from multiple continents, and a home where speakers and visitors always feel a warm welcome.

Felt Like the Chairman of General Motors

Now that I am back from another wonderful stint in Europe I have some time to reflect on my great experiences as a Visiting Professor in Sweden and as a Guest Professor in Austria.

I have blogged over the past several weeks about academic and travel experiences in Europe but today I would like to share with my readers some photos.

On March 12, 2013, I gave a big seminar at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU), after teaching that morning the Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare course that I was offering there. The seminar was on Perishable Product Supply Chains in Healthcare: Models, Analysis, and Computations and  the nice announcement for it is online here.  My hosts during my stay in Vienna were Professor Manfred Fischer and Professor Tina Wakolbinger with great hospitality also provided by Dr. Petra Staufer-Steinnocher.

I was impressed by the seminar room, in the photos below, with the largest corporate-looking table I had ever seen.

 

I felt like I was the Chairman of General Motors (GM) speaking to my board!

I must admit that I do have a connection to one former Chairman of GM and that is to Mr. John F. Smith Jr. (or "Jack" when we converse and correspond). I hold the John F. Smith Memorial Professorship of Operations Management at the Isenberg School of Management, which is named after his father. Both graduated from UMass Amherst and Jack studied Operations Management, whereas his father.had graduated from the Stockbridge School at UMass Amherst. Jack had also been the President and the CEO of GM.

He is a fabulous role model and I am sure that he would be delighted to hear that one of my former PhD students, Dr. Tina Wakolbinger, is now the Director of the Supply Chain Management Institute at  WU in Vienna.

 

And you can read from The New York Times what Jack Smith did once he stepped down from the board of GM. Transportation, whether by land, or air, is simply in our blood!

I am preparing a package to mail to him, which will include my new book:

As for alternative modes of transportation that I saw in Vienna, I liked those below.

Enjoy the flowers from Vienna and Happy Spring!

How General Motors Crisis Managed the Japan Supply Chain Disruptions Post the Triple Disaster

Resilient companies are surviving by continuing to dynamically adapt to the supply chain disruptions and cascading failures post the triple Japan disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011.

To get the parts that are essential for their production processes they have been working even with the suppliers of their suppliers going upstream into the complex supply chain networks.

The New York Times is reporting, in a fascinating article, how General Motor's crisis management team, with white knuckles, resolved the crisis situation. GM, which spends about 2 percent of its parts-buying budget in Japan, identified 118 products that it needed to monitor for shortages but has resolved problems with all but five. The company’s chief executive, Daniel F. Akerson, predicted last week that the Japanese disruptions would have no material impact on G.M.’s earnings.

This is in stark contrast to Toyota, which is experiencing shortages of about 150 parts, for its North American plants, since it uses about 15% of its components from Japan.

GM was able to find alternative suppliers and to assist others in going online, even working back across multiple tiers of its supply chain, something that it had never, previously, had to do. However, there is still a chance of a shortfall in semiconductors and other electronics needed for autos and this situation is being closely monitored.

Clearly, companies must view and manage their supply chain networks as systems in their full complexities. One should move beyond the white board with green and red stickers for product and time management.

It looks as though GM will regain its place as the world's biggest auto company.

Akerson was very classy when, as quoted in the article, he said: “I want to win in the marketplace, but I want to win against a healthy and vibrant Toyota and Honda.” “Next year, we’ll put the gloves back on, and I’m sure they’ll go right back at us and we’ll go back at them.”

Our research on supply chain disruptions is relevant in this scenario. Our paper, Modeling of Supply Chain Risk Under Disruptions with Performance Measurement and Robustness Analysis, by Professors Qiang Qiang, Anna Nagurney, and June Dong, appeared in Managing Supply Chain Risk and Vulnerability: Tools and Methods for Supply Chain Decision Makers, T. Wu and J. Blackhurst, Editors, Springer, Berlin, Germany (2009) pp 91-111.

The Bement School, Graduation, Reflections, and General Motors

Graduations mark milestones in not only the graduating students' lives but also serve as testaments to the families, teachers, friends, and neighbors, who have supported the students. We live in Amherst, Massachusetts, which has been recently selected to be the best college town in North America (beating out such great locations as Berkeley, Cambridge, Washington, DC, and even Montreal)! The beauty in our town is breath-taking and each of the four seasons brings its own uniqueness. Since we are a college town with UMass Amherst, Amherst College, and Hampshire College as the focal educational institutions, and with Smith College and Mount Holyoke College in neighboring towns, education is always valued here (indeed, this sector is the biggest employer). During the glorious months of May and June many graduations take place and it is always a joy to participate in them. I have written recently about the UMass Amherst graduations and festivities at the Isenberg School. Today I am writing about another, truly special, school, The Bement School, from which my daughter graduated yesterday.

The Bement School, located in Deerfield, MA, is a K-9 grade school and includes accommodations for boarders in the higher grades. Day students come from several different states and the boarders, who live at the school, which is in historic Deerfield, hail from South Korea, China, Mexico, Singapore, and from across the United States. There have been boarders, in the past, from European countries, as well. The school is a truly special place in which students are nurtured, teachers are respected, individuality is supported, arts and music treasured, and doing one's best and working hard in a community of kindness, recognized.

My daughter, along with her 21 9th grade classmates, graduated from Bement yesterday, on a picture perfect day in ceremonies conducted outside. She, with 5 of her classmates, has been at Bement since kindergarten, so yesterday marked a decade of association with this incredible educational institution. I had been appointed the John F. Smith Memorial Professor at the Isenberg School of Management, just before her matriculation at Bement, and purchased a GM Chevy Venture when she started kindergarten ten years ago. This was only appropriate since my chaired professorship was endowed by John "Jack" F. Smith, Jr., a UMass Amherst alum, who was then CEO and Chairman of the Board of General Motors. Well, I am pleased to report, that my Chevy venture is still running great and my daughter is now a Bement graduate. GM has been in the news a lot lately and with its reconfiguration and support by the Obama administration, I hope that it becomes reinvented and a new US manufacturing icon.

As for my daughter's classmates, I can only thank them and their parents for their outstanding support, for their unique and special personalities, and for their work ethic and wonderful talents. This class has experienced so much together -- from numerous sports events and musical and theatrical performances, to community service, to dances, to lasting friendships that have been made through shared adventures and trips. The landmark experience, which I wrote about early on in this blog was their trip to the Dominican Republic in January 2009 to help out in "La Suiza," a boy's orphanage. All returned transformed and with a deepened appreciation of their values and the importance of community service, kindness and love. This group of Bementers has been through deaths of parents of several of their classmates and illnesses of their classmates. They have stood together, laughed and cried together, and have become more resilient together. Yesterday, at graduation, they sang together and marched together, while everyone applauded their receipt of their diplomas.

I also thank Ms. Shelley Borror Jackson, the Head of Bement, who arrived as head the same time as the 2009 graduating class of Bement. Under her outstanding leadership, Bement has marked a decade of growth with the building of the new Upper School and library, memorable experiences (children learning how to swim, skate, and ski, and to climb mountains), and wonderful education (children learning new languages, world history, advanced math, science, and the love of reading and writing), that we will treasure in our hearts always. Most importantly, Bement lets children grow up at their own pace.

Thank you, Bement, for your outstanding teachers, coaches, and staff! If only every child could receive the type of education that you provide!

I share some photos with you of Bement Graduation Day, June 5, 2009.