People at Ross -Roman Kapuscinski, TO605 Lecturer, Professor of Technology and Operations-

「コア授業の中で一番ハードだったグループワークは？」

と聞かれたら、私は、

「TO605でやったAlexander&Thurstonのケース」

と、パブロフの犬ごとく即答します。

そんな印象深い授業である TO 605 Manufacturing and Supply Operations(以下、TO 605)を教えてくださったRoman Kapuscinski教授のインタビューを今回お届けします。

TO 605は、Tauber生が受けるコアのオペレーション授業となります。(通常のMBA生が受けるのはTO 552となっています。)TO605は、TO552と比較して、授業期間は倍、学ぶ量も倍、難易度も倍、って感じです。

タフなクラスであるものの、その分学ぶ事も多く、Tauberに入って良かったな、と思えた経験の一つです。

では、早速本題に入りましょう。

1.Profile of the interviewee

Name     : Roman Kapuscinski

Title        : Professor of Technology and Operations

Details   : https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/roman-kapuscinski

2.Interview

(Note: Roman(R), Sho(O)) 

Why Ross?

S:  Okay, my first question is, why did you decide to teach at Ross? 

R:  It was a little bit of a surprise decision because I had offers from multiple schools and reputable companies. I liked all of them, so me and my wife decided to visit all of them. After the visits, it became very clear that Ross is the place that was the first choice. It's pretty obvious that operations department is very strong at Ross but it was also strong in other places. 

 The culture and climate was more positive at Ross than in any other place. We did see how students and faculty interact, and we realized that none of the other places has any comparable type of culture. We started to realize that, if we are going to spend another 5, 15 or 25 years, in one place, why don't we spend it in a place where people are supportive, collaborative and they appreciate each other.  Of course, quality of operations management classes and operation research here was also a very important consideration.

S:  Just to confirm but you said the culture and climate at Ross was a fit for you. Did you feel the same towards the faculties too?

R:  Yes, the signals were very strong on every step: during the initial visits, when we met the faculty, whether lunch or other meetings, moving smoothly from from professional topics to private or side topics, and back to professional topics.  The communication, the stories, the warm attitudes, made it obvious that the culture was very supportive.

S:  I see, that makes sense. I was curious to know what brought you to us.

R:  There was one element, that I like to bring up as an explanation of my path to Michigan: I graduated from Carnegie Mellon ...

S:  Yes, that's why I asked. Haha.

R:  … which is the second best school in the US in operations management and I was very happy to come to Ross because I do believe it's the best place in the US for operations management.

What is the key message you are delivering in TO 605?

S:  Okay, thank you. Next I'm moving on to questions related toT0605. What is the key message or take away you want to deliver in T0 605?

R: I really want anybody who takes TO 605 is to feel competent in understanding the relationships among the key concepts: first, the factors that drive revenue, factors that drive cost, factors that drive culture, factors that may drive customers satisfaction; second, to to be aware that these relationships and forces are predictable and to be able to analyze them. And third, to be able to identify the relative importance of individual factors for individual companies, plants, jobs.  

The overarching message is simple: yes, you can. That is, students who are smart and interested in operations can dramatically improve what happens in any type of company.  The reality is that overwhelming portion of good and bad changes in companies’ fortunes are due to operation executions. So, for TO 605: yes, you can.  The tools and sufficient volume of examples, will allow students to be effective and confident in implementing changes..

How is TO605 different from TO 552 (the core operations class for non-Tauber students)?

S:  Next question is, how are you trying to differentiate from the core operations class (TO 552)? I'm asking because when I was talking to my classmates I thought all those things that is taught in the core class overlaps with T0 605 but there's somethings that didn't overlap.

R:  There are a few topics, which are different but not many. What differentiates TO605 versus core class T0552, is the tools and depth of discussion. The students who takes TO605 typically come with relevant expertise in portions of operations and tremendous interest in operations. Because of that, the redistribution of class time is dramatic. I spend very little teaching the basic and iIt wouldn't be untypical that I assign homework about something that we haven't even studied yet, as you know.

While basics are very important, they can be covered fast, and exercises make it possible to make sure that the basics are in place. But what really makes difference is not the basics, but the implementation. Which trade-off is the primary and which ones can be ignored. How you get the data and how to interpret the data. How to deal with missing information.  How to implement the operational change. I would say that for any topic in TO 552, you probably spend  60% of time introducing and conceptualizing the problem, 20% practicing this problem, and then maybe 20% being aware of extensions and difficulties but not really digging into them. In TO605 the ratios are likely upside down. You spend 20% introducing the problem, maybe 20% practicing, and then another 60% basically talking about realities of implementations, what works, what doesn't work, why? , what makes the tools and concepts applicable or not applicable?

This is important as it builds confidence: I typically see students talking TO 605 feel comfortable jumping into business situations.  When I was advising my MAP projects, you basically could see that knowledge of terminology was not different but the students who took TO605 would say with confidence, "Yes, of course, it's easy.  We can do it."

Thoughts on the importance of operations -Lessons learned from Walmart and K-mart- 

S:  Is your teaching concept same as when you started teaching?

R:  When I started teaching at Michigan, I underestimated the importance of operations. While working with companies, I see more companies rise or go down because of operation than for any other reason.  Actually, when I started at Michigan, I was collaborating with both Walmart and K-Mart. At that moment of time, they had comparable number of stores and one could argue that their strategies didn't differ too much. Both of them wanted to sell a big range of products at very accessible prices.  But one of them was making money and growing, and the other was losing money and shrinking. What made things even more intriguing is that the core of the operations was the same. They both used a gigantic software package written by IBM and which basically handled nearly all of their operations (what to buy, in what quantities, in what locations, how to transport). You have two companies competing in the same dimensions, using the same underlying IT, and one of them does well and the other does poorly. You could, however, see how well managed Walmart was, where every process was well prescribed, defined, and executed while K-mart didn't have the same level of discipline.

S:  Can you point out the key differences?

R:  One good example would be a list of products with big forecasting errors. Walmart would print would print and high-level managers would daily analyze the items for which the sales were significantly different than the forecast. Why did it happen? Is it something that we should have anticipated? Is it something that we should be doing differently in future? The list was typically not too long. Less than 100 items, and the questions were raised if some products appeared again on the list.

 Kmart actually ran the same report, except that the report was overwhelming long.  Because it was long, it was difficult to act on it. Because it was not acted on, it was long.  

Once more: the same strategy, the same software, the same technology, but one company was very on the path of continuous relentless improvement and the other one did not make it a priority.

S:  That's interesting. You said that Walmart has less than 100 items on the list. How did they narrow them down to that number?

R:  Walmart used the forecasting software designed by IBM. In the process of using, whatever they believe that could be done better, they improved the software. Their accuracy was actually amazing.

S:  That's very interesting. I knew of a Walmart and Kmart but, I didn't know that there was such a difference in operations.

R:  Currently Walmart is overshadowed by Amazon.  Interestingly at the end of 1990s, business analysis and business journals were asking: will Walmart overtake the whole US? Which of course has not happened, but is an interesting fact to remember when looking at Amazon.

What do you think makes your operation class different from those in other schools?

S:  Thank you. So this will be my last question. What do you think makes your operation class different from other operation classes at other schools?

R: At Michigan, we have an incredible benefit of interacting with a broad range of companies. I suspect that actually no business school interacts with so many companies, to the degree we do.  Consequently, the classes I observed in other schools, tended to be much less nuanced. What I mean by this, similar emphasis on the basic principles, but seldom dealing with the exceptions, and detailed drivers behind them. 

Now that I am the chair of technology and operations group at Ross, I visi classes of multiple T&O faculty. I see that it's not me, it's all faculty at Ross, and certainly T&O faculty, pay big attention to the nuances of reality.  It's easy in Ross to ask question why, say HP, or Mazon, is using this strategy, or tactics, or process -- the chances are very good that our faculty either interacted with those companies or, at least, interacted with other faculty who were involved.

S:  Well, this was a really interesting story. Thank you so much for your time today! 

(執筆：Sho(Class of 2019))