Business school may add major
Robyn Kriel

Officials in the M.J. Neeley School of Business are hoping to add a new major to the school’s curriculum.

“The supply chain’s management program is expected to be approved by fall 2004,” said Charles Lamb, chairman of the department of information systems and supply chain management, the unit requesting the program.

Lamb said that about three years ago, Dean Robert Lusch saw the need for a reorganization of the school. He established a task force, which decided that a new department should be created offering two majors — electronic business, which has already been offered for three years, and a new major, supply chain management.

Last June the department of information systems and supply chain management was created.

Lamb said a department like this is necessary in today’s business world.

“Management, marketing, logistics and information technology all work together today,” Lamb said.
“Corporations in Texas and around the United States are looking to hire people who are able to cross-function in these areas.”

Lamb said prospective students in this major can learn management and technological skills through electronic business and also learn marketing skills through supply chains management.

“The North Texas business community found that they were recruiting a lot of college graduates from outside Texas in the area of supply chain management,” Lusch said. “There are not many schools that offer this in this area, and they are in the Midwest and East.”

Lusch said the business school’s prestige could be enhanced by the addition of this major.

“We can clearly differentiate our school by providing concentrations at the undergraduate and graduate level in supply chain management,” Lusch said.

Nancy Nix, director of the university’s Supply and Value Chain Center, has also been involved in promoting the new major.

“Right now our center offers a certificate in supply chain management,” Nix said. “This has proved so far to be a success.”

Nix said the center works closely with local businesses.

“We gain feedback and input from the businesses, we let them review our curriculum to make sure that our graduates learn the skills they need to be successful in the market place.”

According to its Web site, the center works with companies such as RadioShack, Frito-Lay and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company.

Nix said this new major will prove to be an asset to the business school, and this is an area that has become more important to companies over the last decade.

“Business today is so competitive,” she said. “It has become so much more difficult to manage the integrated design, flow and transformation of materials and something like supply chains management teaches you to manage all this.”