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  - Oct. 7, 2014 -  

Gartner Again Ranks Top Supply Chain University Programs - Let the Alumni Debate Begin

 

Penn State Tops Graduate and and Is Tied for First for Undergraduate Programs; What Should the Criteria Be?

 
     
     
  by SCDigest Editorial Staff  
     
 

Gartner has once again released its rankings of the top US graduate and undergraduate supply chain programs, sure as always to cause some controversy and debate.

SCDigest Says:

As can be seen, there was actually quite a bit of movement in the graduate list up and down for many schools.


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The former AMR Research started the ranking effort in 2009, a spinoff concept of course to its "top 25 supply chains lists" model that now has several such offshoots. Gartner later acquired AMR.

The first such list couldn't muster up 25 university respondents and rated only 19 graduate programs.

Later Gartner began rating undergraduate programs as well, and this year had 40 schools submit information on their undergraduate supply chain programs, and 35 for graduate programs, making a full "top 25" list possible.

Thirty-one programs were returning participants to the undergraduate process, while nine were newcomers, responding to the RFI for the first time. On the graduate side, 25 programs were returning, while 10 were newcomers.

Interestingl, the graduate side is a bit complicated, with many schools having more than one supply chain-related program. The 35 responding schools actually presented 73 distinct graduate supply chain programs: 31 M.B.A. programs, 18 M.S. programs and 24 Ph.D. programs.

Of course, how to rate and rank programs is not obvious, but Gartner does its best to quantify the process. For both undergraduate and graduate programs, the ranking uses a weighted average of 40% for "undergraduate industry value" (mentions as a top university program or recruiting spot based on a survey, the number of student internships achieved, and average starting salary of graduates); 20% on sheer program size (number of professors and students); and 40% for "program scope" (how many of 12 key knowledge areas according to a Gartner framework does the program include?).

On the graduate side, Penn State came out on top once again, as shown in the table below, with each school's 2011 ranking shown for comparison. If a school was not ranked in 2011, it may have been because they did not engage in the process that year.

Gartner Top 25 Supply Chain Graduate Programs 2014

 

University

2014

2011 Rank

Penn State

1

1

Michigan State

2

3.5

Tennessee

3

10

Michigan

4

2

Georgia Tech

5

9

Arizona State

6

5

Ohio State

7

8

Texas/Austin

8

15

MIT

9

14

University of Wisconsin/Madison

9

10

Rutgers

11

3.5

South Carolina

12

18

Syracuse

13

6

Brigham Young

14

--

North Carolina State

15
22

Texas/Dallas

16

13

Northeastern

17

--

Kansas

17

24

Arkansas

19

--

Indiana

20

17

Maryland

21

21

Marquette

22

--

San Diego

23

19

Howard
24

--

Texas Christian

24

--

Houston
24
--
North Texas
24
--

 

As can be seen, there was actually quite a bit of movement in the graduate list up and down for many schools. Falling out of the top 25 this year were Stanford, Florida, Oklahoma, and Auburn. Again, that could be the result of the ranking process or that the school did not participate in this year's survey.

 

We suspect that was the case with Stanford, for example, as it dropped out of the top 25 in both the graduate and undergraduate categories.

 

 

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)


 
   
 

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On the undergraduate side, the rankings were as follows, again with 2011 comparisons.

Gartner Top 25 Supply Chain Undergraduate Programs 2014

.

University
2014
2011
Penn State
1
1
Michigan State
1
5
Tennessee
3
9.5
Texas/Austin
4
6
Western Michigan
5
12
Brigham Young
6
--
University of North Texas
6
23
Auburn
8
19.5
Arizona State
9
3
Rutgers
9
3
Wisconsin/Madison
11
7.5
South Carolina
12
19.5
Texas Christian
13
19.5
Houston
14
--
Northeastern
15
--
Marquette
16
14.5
Ohio State
17
7.5
Lehigh
18
14.5
Syracuse
18
16
Oklahoma
20
--
Georgia Tech
21
3
Miami (Ohio)
22
--
Texas A&M
22
9.5
North Carolina State
24
--
Rider
25
24.5
Kansas
25
19.5

 

 

Again, some fairly decent movement up and down from 2011. Maryland, Stanford, Indiana, University of Nevada/Reno, and Iowa State dropped out of the undergraduate list from 2011.

 

 

What do you think of these Gartner rankings of the top supply chain programs? What would you add the criteria?   Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section below.


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Recent Feedback

It is very nice you are devoting time to spot the most important Universities teaching Supply Chain. It is very important to keep in mind that no one company will be competitive without a strong supply chain process. Congratulations to you all.


Euripedes Gomes
CEO
GMS Software Engineering and Supply Chain Innnovation
Oct, 09 2014
 

 

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