Linking Industry and Academia
Click Picture to Enlarge
Linking Industry and Academia
29.11.2011

UCC’s Departments of Food Business & Development and Management & Marketing recently hosted the Postgraduate Diploma/Masters in Supply Chain Management (Lean SCM Black Belt) Capstone Event.

The Postgraduate Diploma/Masters in Supply Chain Management (Lean SCM Black Belt) is a tailored and systematic programme designed to improve global supply chain processes through cost reduction and value-add. The Lean philosophy promotes a systematic approach to eliminating process waste and non-value-add activities and hence increases sustainable profitability.

The UCC programme attracts career-minded practitioners from a wide range of industries, such as: pharmaceuticals, medical devices, food and drinks, electronics, utilities, distribution and services. Participating companies in this cohort include: Amazon, Centocor Biologics J&J, Defence Forces – Navy, DePuy J&J, Hollister, Irish Dairy Board, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Kepak, Pepsico and Pfizer.

The event at UCC included Student ‘Lean Black Belt’ Project Presentation and Poster Sessions and short seminars from Professor Peter Hines (LERC, Cardiff University and S A Partners), Professor John Mangan (The University of Hull) and Simon Healy (Mediaware Digital).


The research projects presented by the students are the culmination of their Lean studies. These ‘Black Belt level’ projects are awarded to those students who demonstrate not only a competency in Lean techniques but also the ability to lead change initiatives within the workplace and achieve continuous and sustainable improvements.

The winner of this year’s ‘S A Partners Prize for Best Black Belt Project’ was Paul Deasy, Team Leader, DePuy J&J. Dr Seamus O’Reilly (SCM Academic Programme Director, UCC) commented
“this is our third consecutive year of Black Belt presentations and the level of improvement introduced, in terms of both value added and cost reduction, across many sectors and numerous companies is most impressive from an educational perspective and encouraging from a global competitiveness perspective. Indeed in total we have had 53 excellent projects to date and pipeline of 17 to come to fruition next year.  The winner was selected on the basis of progress made within the organisation during the course of the project.” He congratulated all involved and went on to highlight the merits of this UCC-led comprehensive programme which makes part-time education accessible and useful to many people working in industry.

Details of the programme can be found at: http://www.ucc.ie/scm

Picture (L-R): Dr. Seamus O’Reilly (SCM Academic Programme Director, UCC), Professor Peter Hines (Cardiff University and S A Partners), Paul Deasy (Team Leader, DePuy J&J) and Dermot Freeman (Lean Black Belt Tutor)



<<Previous ItemNext Item>>

« Back to 2011 Press Releases