Business and Engineering Students Tackle Manufacturing in Erie
Multi-disciplinary teams present viable solutions to region’s loss of manufacturing jobsThe goal: to propose a manufacturing company and prove that it is economically viable in the greater Erie area.
The players: 65 students at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, enrolled in two separate classes—Problems in Financial Management and Engineering for Manufacturing —charged with the ultimate goal of determining if their fictitious start-up companies could become reality.
For some, that answer might be yes.
Greg Filbeck, professor of finance and the Samuel P. Black III professor of insurance and risk management in the Sam and Irene Black School of Business, and John Roth, associate professor of mechanical engineering in the School of Engineering, each incorporated the joint finance and manufacturing project into their curriculum for the fall 2007 semester. “To our knowledge, this is the first time where two independent classes collaborated in this way to form a multi-disciplinary team project,” said Roth.
Each team’s proposal will include information on the manufacturing components required on the production floor; the support structure needed to operate the facility; plus economic and industry analyses. The students developed a three- to five-year financial outlook with potential capital sources and resulting cash flows and performed a sensitivity analysis on those projections. In the end, each team determined the viability of its proposed business and presented their findings to a panel of Penn State Behrend faculty and guests, including Filbeck and Roth.
The joint finance and manufacturing project is the latest organized business/engineering collaboration at Penn State Behrend. With the addition of the Research and Economic Development Center (REDC), the college has developed two minors—Technical Sales plus Operations and Supply Chain Management—and one three-credit class, Product Development and Entrepreneurialship, that incorporate the “connection, collision and interaction” concept with which the REDC was designed.
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a comprehensive residential college offering 32 baccalaureate, six associate, four pre-professional and two graduate degree programs with 22 minors to more than 4,400 students. Focused on providing a student-centered environment, Penn State Behrend is the link that connects its students to a major research and land-grant institution on a campus enriched by more than 110 clubs and organizations, 21 NCAA varsity teams, 19 intramural sports and modern facilities. For more information, visit behrend.psu.edu.