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| Hurricane Sandy tossed boxcars and caused extensive damage to ports in New York and New Jersey. |
Guest post from Kelley Direct Programs
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| John Boullie |
As the supply planning manager for several production lines that run 24/7 in Windsor Locks, Conn., John Boullie puts his Kelley Direct degree to
work on a daily basis.
However, it wasn’t until Hurricane Sandy hit that he came to
truly appreciate the skills he gained in the school’s Global Supply Chain Management program.
“We had to shut operations down entirely when the governor of
Connecticut closed the highways,” says Boullie. “When we reopened a day and a
half later, we had to manually coordinate our just-in-time raw material
deliveries with each supplier and look at how the unplanned shutdown would
affect our promised ship dates to customers.”
Complicating matters even further was the extensive destruction
found in the ports of New York and New Jersey.
“The ports were closed for more than a week with no power and a
great backlog of traffic,” he says.
Keeping his plants running and shipments moving in the midst of
such chaos was no easy task. To stay on track, Boullie relied on his Kelley
Direct education.
“The process-mapping skills I learned in professor (Rhonda) Lummus’ class
allowed me and my team to outline and focus on the pieces of the chain that
were the most critical and needed the most attention,” Boullie says. “I
even pulled out some of the Excel files we worked on to help me maximize our
production output and get the most shipments out in the smallest amount of
time.”
Things are getting back to normal now, but Boullie continues to be
thankful for his Kelley degree.
“Getting a Global Supply Chain Management degree from Kelley
Direct was a great decision for me,” he says. “I’ve applied many of the more
unique tools and concepts I learned at Kelley to my work here.”