Monsanto Olin Case Competition awards $10,000 prize

Washington University’s Olin Business School was proud to host the second annual Monsanto Olin Supply Chain Case Competition on Friday, February 3. Teams from top business schools across the country competed for bragging rights and the $10,000 grand prize. Participating universities included Michigan State University, the University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, the University of Minnesota, the University of Missouri, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Washington University in St. Louis, and last year’s champs, Texas Christian University. After much deliberation, the judges decided that UNC had delivered the top overall presentation, with second place going to WashU, and third place to Mizzou.

The competition was designed to give graduate students an opportunity to provide innovative business solutions to a case study written about Monsanto’s seed corn supply chain. Monsanto’s motivation for holding the competition was to foster and attract more supply chain management talent to work on food supply chain solutions for an ever-growing world. Monsanto’s Global Customer Care team, led by Mario Morhy and Marcelle Pires, was very pleased with all presentations and impressed by the level of talent and insight displayed by the teams.

1st Place $10,000:  University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill
2nd Place $5000:  Washington University, Team Olin :Tom Siepman, Serena Chen, Ravi Balu and Samantha Feng
3rd Place $2500:  University of Missouri- Columbia

The case study used for the competition, titled “Monsanto Company: Production & Inventory Planning Challenges in Seed Corn Supply Chains,” was written by WashU’s Panos Kouvelis, Emerson Distinguished Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management and director of The Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation. The competition was administered by Olin Business School’s graduate programs office, with Associate Dean Joe Fox acting as the master of ceremonies and his team, including Sarah Miller and Laura Fogarty, providing strong logistical support.

On behalf of the Olin community, The Boeing Center congratulates the UNC team on their victory and thanks all those who helped make this year’s case competition a great success!