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Subject: executive Update
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 12:43:43 EST
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11/5/92


TITLE executive Update

New Programs Put More Business In Business School


Companies Help Move Students Out Of The Classroom And Into Real
World The Associated Press In Detroit

When the automotive division of Allied- Signal Inc. needed to re-
vise its budgeting process, company executives handed the project
to a group of University of Michigan business students.

The arrangement was part of a growing effort by businesses to
help train business school students in real world problems. Back-
ers say the plan Education

benefits both the boardroom and the classroom.  "We were spending
five months on a budgeting assessment that sometimes is good for
only a month or two," said Mike Fettinger, manager of financial
operations for the Southfield, Mich.-based division of Allied-
Signal.  "This presentation made headquarters see we could do it
in less." The students' solution reached the Morristown, N.J.-
based manufacturer of aerospace, automotive and engineering ma-
terials within seven weeks.  The seven students were part of the
Michigan Business School's first Multidisciplinary Action Pro-
ject. The program puts teams of six or seven MBA candidates on
factory floors for the last quarter of their first year.  About
one-third of Michigan Business School's 440 MBA candidates signed
up last semester for the project. It's required for all first-
year students this fall, said Jim Danko, the program's coordina-
tor.  Rich Schneider, 25, of Weston, Conn., parlayed his project
work into a summer internship at Allied-Signal, one of 21 cor-
porate sponsors.  "Allied-Signal took this project so seriously,"
Schneider said. "We didn't know what to expect when we went in.
They laid down the framework and said this is what we want.  "In
one sense, we learned about the total-quality program that
Allied-Signal is implementing, and we also learned . . . how to
manage expectations of what the customer - Allied-Signal -
wants."

Redefining business education is a matter of recognizing what
companies look for, said Tim Renn, an assistant dean and director
of communications at the Kellogg School of Business at
Northwestern University. The Kellogg School offers a master's of
management in manufacturing, combining marketing and finance with
manufacturing and technological skills.  "They want to see people
who understand the broad spectrum of business and can go in there
and integrate the business-making decisions . . . with an em-
phasis on quality," he said.  "The critics of business schools
have said you're doing a good job of giving people instruction in
these technical skills - accounting, marketing, finance. But we'd
like to see the business graduates be better able to apply these
skills in practice," said Charles Hickman, projects director for
the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business in St.
Louis.  Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, which
offers several courses and degree programs pairing "suits" with
"gearheads" from the engineering school, focuses on global com-
petition.

"We're American business schools, and our companies are operating
in a worldwide business climate," said Associate Dean Charles
Bonini. "Most schools are making an attempt to internationalize
the viewpoints of their students." Peter Hoglund worked on a pro-
ject team at a Rochester Hills, Mich., Kmart store. Its project
was to streamline the process of keeping minimal inventory while
maintaining well-stocked floors and accurate accounting.  "You go
to business school and you start learning all these high-falutin'
academic tools that will hopefully make each student a successful
manager," Hoglund said. "When you go into the real world, it's
hard to implement that sometimes." Joe Hilger, director of mark-
eting and planning for Chrysler Corp.'s automotive parts division
in Center Line, Mich., and a sponsor of the Michigan program,
praised efforts of business schools to bolster corporate change.
"It's the right way for business and education to start working
together," Hilger said.

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