When Indiana University Health examined how to diversify use of its new self-distribution warehouse, the system’s supply chain team worked with students in the Evening MBA Program at the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis to innovate ideas.
“We have a self-distribution warehouse that a lot of hospital systems do not have. We built it six years ago, and while we’ve gotten benefits from it, we’ve begun a five-year plan on how to better leverage this asset,” said Duane Schmitz, who was vice president of supply chain at IU Health during this project. “One of my team members was a student at Kelley Indianapolis and connected us for a consulting project. Being able to tap into 100 creative MBA minds and getting to work with world-class Kelley faculty was very intriguing.”
Evening MBA Program curriculum focuses on hands-on and real-world learning by connecting the classroom with the Indianapolis business community through consulting projects. These live projects give MBA students the chance to apply what they’re learning while helping large and small organizations from a variety of industries solve unique challenges.
Under the guidance of Amrou Awaysheh, associate professor of operations and supply chain management and OneAmerica Foundation Endowed Chair, the Evening MBA students assessed a variety of potential options for the warehouse, including expanding the delivery of goods, growing the number of products offered, implementing tracking technology to reduce expired supplies, adding more robotic automation, and increasing brand awareness within the established market.
Amrou says the in-depth research helps off-load some strategic brainstorming for the companies who partner on these consulting projects.
“Business managers are typically putting out fires every day as part of their jobs as leaders, and it can be very difficult to step back to look at the problem in a new way,” Amrou said. “Our Evening MBA teams solve two problems for them: We force them to get out of firefighting mode and look at their challenges strategically as they walk us through it. Just doing that makes them more effective at their daily job. And we also help them solve problems they wouldn’t have thought about before. A lot of this goes back to A/B testing, which is the bread and butter of tech companies like Amazon, but not as common in manufacturing.”
The Kelley MBA student experience
The Kelley MBA teams came up with several strategies to take advantage of the warehouse space, including the option to begin offering sterile processing at the 30,000-square-foot facility. MBA teams worked through current trends in warehousing, local industry needs, potential partners, and IU Health’s mission. Students in the Evening MBA Program are typically working professionals from a variety of industries and professional fields. As with any type of consultant work, when they didn’t know something, they had to learn to fill in the gaps.
“We were presented with great information, but there were many unknown variables, which added to the case’s complexity,” said Jeff Wallen, MBA’25, an accounting specialist at the Regenstrief Institute. “These unknowns challenged our thinking and required us to develop the best solutions based on the information available. This case reinforced the fact that good use of time is critical with the client, and asking the proper questions and gaining as much understanding is important if you are to deliver the greatest solutions.”
Students had to lean on skills and approaches they were learning in their Evening MBA classes to solve problems and research relevant, actionable solutions.
“Some key tools that helped my group form our recommendation are those I learned throughout the program, like a successful SWOT analysis, capacity and utilization, and knowledge on technologies that are currently impacting and transforming today’s industries,” said Tiffany Holden, MBA’25, a senior financial analyst at IU Health. “And as an IU Health employee, this project was extremely interesting to see the ‘behind the scenes’ supply-chain attributes that impact medication, medical supplies, and other necessary materials for Indiana’s leading healthcare provider—and the impact supply chain operations has on total operations within an organization.”
As they outlined strategic roadmaps and potential returns on investment for their ideas, the Evening MBA students put their studies into direct, real-world use. They also presented their findings for evaluation and discussion. Students say this process gave them better insight into the work of consulting, which many are interested in pursuing, as well as skills they can use in their daily work.
“As business leaders, it’s our responsibility to drive continuous improvement. The concepts and skills acquired in Professor Awaysheh’s class are vital inputs to achieve better outputs,” said Aaron Wilson, MBA’25, CEO of Classy Customs. “These skills focus on proof of concept by measuring the return on potential implementation solutions.”
“For many of my colleagues in the Kelley Evening MBA Program, there is a strong desire to pursue a career in consulting after graduating,” Jeff said. “This case provided insights into the applied approaches that are required to develop a plan or solution for IU Health. It also allowed for more open-ended solutions to solving the problems—a sandbox effect. As a group, we were able to apply the concepts we have learned in finance, supply chain management, corporate strategy, operations management, project management, and Lean Six Sigma processes. This case allowed us to exercise these concepts and transform them into solutions.”
The business takeaway
Like all business leaders, Duane was managing several fluid changes at IU Health throughout the project. He moved into a new role of vice president of system contracted services and navigated an organizational optimization process during this time. He says the fresh ideas from the Evening MBA teams offered him excellent third-party perspectives on concepts he hadn’t had time to examine more deeply.
For instance, Duane’s team had already considered using the warehouse to supply other healthcare systems and clinics in the state to better leverage their available space, but the MBA students tied that option back to IU Health’s wider mission.
“One of IU Health’s overall goals is to improve the health of Hoosiers across the entire state, and one team suggested we use this self-distribution to help smaller, rural hospitals that don’t have our buying power as a way to achieve the goal,” Duane said. “We hadn’t really positioned it in this way. That was powerful because it really achieved two things: not only how to use the asset, but also how to achieve one of our broader system goals. The MBA students’ recommendation was creative, and I’m hopeful that down the road we can pursue it.”
The idea of using the space for sterile processing is one that Duane’s team had also considered, but the Evening MBA teams suggested that IU Health bring in a third-party to do the processing, rather than do it themselves. Their recommendations validated the sterile processing option with research while also giving Duane’s team a fresh approach.
“They came at it from a different angle, a different perspective than we would because we’re embedded in the business every day,” he said. “That’s where I found the value in the Evening MBA recommendations: They affirmed some of the ideas we had, and in a couple cases, they gave us a whole new approach to solve a problem.”
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