What is an experiential learning project?
Teams of 3-5 Master’s students complete a project for a partnering company in a summer or fall term for Experiential Learning course credit.
The student teams are closely supervised by Krannert Operations Management faculty and are responsible for completing all deliverables as specified by the partner company and presenting final results to the faculty and company.
Examples of Past Projects
Inventory and Production Plan Optimization at Coleman Cable
In this project, the team worked to both optimize inventory levels and investigate changes in production quantities for Coleman Cable, a producer of copper wire and cable. Recommendations included suggestions for implementing a (Q, r) inventory control policy, focused on implementing reorder points and levels of safety stock, 
in order to reduce lead time to the fabrication department’s customer, and proposed production quantities based on the EOQ model.
Production Planning at Verallia
Demand uncertainty is one of the major operational challenges at Verallia, the number three glass packaging manufacturing company in the world. The focus of this project was to improve the demand predictions and thereby improving the production output rates, cost of production and reduce manual intervention.
Supply Chain Cost Reduction at the Chao Center
The Chao Center is a drug manufacturer located in West Lafayette, Indiana. In this project, the team investigated a variety of strategies for lowering inbound freight costs, including new raw material ordering patterns, a change from truck to rail freight for selected items, and the use of freight consolidators to eliminate the high premiums assigned to less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping quantities.