Tag: Research Centers

He’s against breaking up big banks. He doesn’t favor a return to Glass-Steagall’s separation of commercial and investment banking. And he’d like to see most of the Dodd-Frank Act dismantled. William Cohan made it clear at the second annual Wealth & Asset Management Conference at Olin that he’s against tight regulation of the finance industry where he spent most of his career.

Cohan was a headline speaker at the conference sponsored by the Wells Fargo Advisors Center for Finance and Accounting Research held Aug. 22-23. Cohan’s current career involves writing books about how big finance works behind the headlines. Cohan discussed his latest work, Why Wall Street Matters, with Rich Ryffel, senior lecturer in finance.

So, how would Cohan propose preventing the next financial crisis if regulation won’t help? David Nicklaus at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered their conversation in his Aug. 25 column:

Cohan proposes that the top 500 or so executives at each big bank be required to pledge their entire net worth as backing for the firm’s liabilities. They could still earn bonuses and stock options when things were going well, but another bad bet like subprime mortgages could cost them everything.

“It’s in the DNA of Wall Street to have your own skin in the game,” Cohan says. “You’re not going to take Goldman Sachs or Wells Fargo private, but my idea would recreate some of the old partnership structure.”

Dan Hazlett and Matt Gordon of Anheuser-Busch InBev are constantly trying to incorporate new technology into their supply chain to ensure fresher, better-tasting beer to the consumer. In this highlight, they describe the complexity of the beer supply chain, from breweries to distributors to retailers. They mention some of the challenges associated with shipping and inventory management, as well as some of the innovative technologies they are employing to improve the visibility of their payloads, from the breweries all the way to the retailers. This would allow them to take into account weather and traffic, and schedule more accurate loading and unloading times.

Some of the new initiatives at AB InBev are focusing on three main areas: scaling out the visibility capabilities to import/export operations, integrating tracking and planning applications across the whole supply chain, and developing smarter algorithms and predictive analytics. All of these efforts will enable AB to improve the efficiency of their already outstanding supply chain, and shorten the time between the brewery and your stomach.

For more supply chain digital content and cutting-edge research, check us out on the socials [@theboeingcenter] and our website [olin.wustl.edu/bcsci]

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A Boeing Center digital production

Supply Chain  //  Operational Excellence  //  Risk Management

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Automation, or the use of robots and other artificial intelligence to perform tasks, has increased dramatically over the past couple decades. And while a Skynet scenario in the near future is unlikely, we are undoubtedly on the brink of an automation revolution.

John Stroup, President & CEO of Belden Inc., recently paid a visit to The Boeing Center to discuss some of the economic drivers for a revolution in automation. He believes that the United States is well-positioned for increased automation in manufacturing due to recent technological advances. In fact, the majority of manufacturing jobs lost in the last 10-15 years are a result of increased automation, not offshoring (as is commonly thought).

One of the economic factors Stroup credits for the automation revolution is the rise in minimum wages. As labor costs increase, companies look for ways to decrease spending, often turning to machines to replace their human counterparts. But despite the downward trend in manufacturing jobs, there has been a massive uptick in productivity due to robotics and other technology. He predicts that by 2025, the global average of tasks performed by robots will be around 25%, more than double what it is today. Stroup then went on to describe his experience at a “lights-out factory,” or a factory that doesn’t turn on the lights because it utilizes only robots and artificial intelligence.

Stroup went on to mention that Europe is often ahead of the curve in terms of automation due to relatively expensive labor. Regardless of one’s opinions about automation, we are likely to see its increased adoption as global labor costs rise and the cost of implementing AI falls.

For more supply chain digital content and cutting-edge research, check us out on the socials [@theboeingcenter] and our website [olin.wustl.edu/bcsci]

• • •

A Boeing Center digital production

Supply Chain  //  Operational Excellence  //  Risk Management

Website  • LinkedIn  • Subscribe  • Facebook  • Instagram  • Twitter  • YouTube

As the world learned in 2008, a global financial crisis can happen when economists least expect (or predict) it. But according to Gary Gorton, finance professor at Yale’s School of Management, it will happen again. He estimates the next crisis will come in 10 to 15 years. Gorton shared his analysis of the 2008 financial crisis at an event sponsored by the Wells Fargo Advisors Center for Finance and Accounting Research at Olin, Aug. 16.

Gorton will address the Finance Theory Group Summer School, meeting at Olin this week, at 9 a.m., Friday, Aug. 18, in Emerson Auditorium, Knight Hall. His topic will be: “The Private Money View of Financial Crises.”

Gorton’s 2010 book, Misunderstanding Financial Crises, Why We Don’t See Them Coming, provides historical context for understanding the 2008 financial crisis and why economists and policy makers need to recognize that crises are inevitable and inherent to our financial system. To those who thought that a crisis could not happen again in the US after the Great Depression, Gorton is blunt: “That economists did not think such a crisis could happen in the United States was an intellectual failure.”

Unlike the 1929 crash with bank runs like the scene in the Frank Capra film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” the causes of the 2008 crisis were less visible. Cloaked in electronic trading, complex financial ‘innovations’, and unregulated derivative securities trading within the Shadow Banking system, Gorton said economists were blind to what was really happening in the financial markets.

Gorton points to the lack of data available from financial institutions as a major handicap for economists and policy makers who need to track activity to more accurately understand the markets and see signs of crisis before it’s too late. Gorton calls for a new information infrastructure to be built by the Office of Financial Research established under the Dodd-Frank legislation. He argues collecting and sharing data would help regulators as well as economists to more accurately measure risk and liquidity in the markets.

Gary Gorton and Rich Ryffel, Olin Senior Lecturer in Finance

Bio
Gary B. Gorton is The Frederick Frank Class of 1954 Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management, which he joined in August 2008. Prior to joining Yale, he was the Robert Morris Professor of Banking and Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught from 1983 to 2008. Dr. Gorton has done research in many areas of finance and economics, including both theoretical and empirical work. He is the author of Slapped by the Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007 (Oxford University Press) and Misunderstanding Financial Crises (Oxford University Press).

Dr. Gorton has consulted for the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, various U.S. Federal Reserve Banks, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and the Central Bank of Turkey. He was a consultant to AIG Financial Products from 1996 to 2008.

Dr. Gorton received his doctorate in economics from the University of Rochester. In the field of economics, he received master’s degrees at the University of Rochester and Cleveland State University, and also received a master’s degree in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan.

Jim McKelvey, entrepreneur and co-founder of Square, will be the keynote speaker at the Second Annual Wealth and Asset Management Research Conference to be held at Olin Aug. 22-23, 2017. Hosted by the Wells Fargo Center for Finance and Accounting Research (WFA CFAR), the meeting brings together researchers and practitioners who share the common goal of better understanding the capital markets to create better outcomes for investors. The conference will feature research from leading academics with audience discussions lead by industry experts in each given field of research.

McKelvey was appointed as an Independent Director of the St. Louis Federal Reserve in January 2017, but is better known for his involvement in several St. Louis-based startups including Cultivation Capital (general partner and co-founder), Six Thirty (co-founder), LaunchCode (founder), Third Degree Glass Factory(co-founder), Mira publishing (founded when he was a WashU student), and Square, the mobile payment company he founded in 2009 with Jack Dorsey.

McKelvey graduated from Washington University in 1987 with degrees in Economics and Computer Science. Earlier this year, he donated $15M to the University to build a new computer science and engineering building named in honor of his father, James McKelvey, Sr. who is a former dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

In addition to research topics, the one-and-a-half-day conference will feature presentations by noted industry experts including attorney Jerry Schlichter, and author William Cohan.

Link to register.
Sessions will be held in Emerson Auditorium, Knight Hall.

Conference Schedule:

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

12:00 – 1:00 pm  Registration – Knight Hall, Frick Forum1:00 – 1:15 pmWelcome & Opening Remarks Richard Ryffel, Senior Lecturer in Finance, Washington University

1:15 – 2:00 pm  Presenter – Bob Dannhauser, Head, Global Private Wealth Management, CFA Institute, “The Art and Science of Wealth Management: Looking to the Future”

2:15 – 3:00 pm  Presenter – Dan Bergstresser, Associate Professor of Finance, Brandeis International Business School, “Changes in the Municipal Bond Landscape since the Global Financial Crisis”

Discussant – Linda Matkowski, Chief Operating Officer, Stern Brothers & Co.

3:00 – 3:45 pm  Presenter – Andy Kalotay, President, Andrew Kalotay Associates, “Tax Optimization of Municipal Bond Portfolios”

Discussant – Steve Wood, Principal, Stephen A. Wood Consulting, LLC

4:00 – 5:00 pm   “Remembering Steve Ross: The Man and His Ideas” – Phil Dybvig, Boatmen’s Bancshares Professor of Banking and Finance, Washington University, Rick Antle, William S. Beinecke Professor of Accounting, Yale University, Michael Griswold, Senior Director, Risk Managment and Asset Allocation, Ascension Investment Management

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

8:00 – 9:00 am
A Discussion of the Importance of Financial Services to the Economy – William Cohan, Author,  “Why Wall Street Matters“

9:15 – 10:00 am   Presenter – Jerry Schlichter, Founding and Managing Partner, Schlichter, Bogard, & Denton, “Litigation Pitfalls for 401k Plan Fiduciaries”

10:15 – 11:00 am   Presenter – Matt Ringgenberg, Associate Professor of Finance, David Eccles School of Business,  “On Index Investing”

Discussant – Hans Fredrickson, CIO, Oak Summit Capital

11:00 – 11:45 am   Presenter – Todd Gormley, Associate Professor of Finance, Washington University, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Effect of Passive Investors on Activism”

Discussant – Charles Stucke, Chief Executive Officer, Lepercq

12:00 – 12:45 pm   Presenter – Emily Gallagher, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Household Finance, Washington University, “Financial Challenges of Low-Income Households”

Discussant – Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO, Beyond Housing

2:00 – 2:30 pm   FinTech Showcase – Presenter – Cliff Holekamp, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Academic Director for Entrepreneurship “How Venture Capital Pays”

2:30 – 3:30 pm   FinTech Showcase Panel – Ben Harrison, Chief Revenue Officer and Co-founder, DealCloud, Inc., Josh Smith, Co-founder and CEO, Solovis, Laurence Stock, COO and Co-founder, Numerated Growth Technologies, Inc., “Automation in Asset Management”

Moderator – Joe Maxwell, Managing Partner, Cultivation FinTech

3:30 – 4:15 pm  FinTech Showcase – Keynote Address – Jim McKelvey, General Partner and Co-founder, Cultivation Capital, Co-founder and Director, Square.

Twenty years ago, through the exceptional generosity of the McDonnell Douglas Foundation, The Boeing Center for Technology, Information, and Manufacturing was endowed in the Olin Business School. Since then, we have served as a powerful catalyst for technology-driven innovation, process optimization, risk management, and global supply chain excellence.

In honor of our 20th anniversary, and to more accurately reflect our focus, we adopted a new look and changed our name to The Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation. And with a renewed vigor, we completed the most successful year in our history. Not only did we work on a record number of corporate projects, but we also hosted several events featuring exceptional speakers and supported research on a number of cutting-edge topics.

This spring, we welcomed Mike Pinedo, the Julius Schlesinger Professor of Operations Management at New York University, to talk about operational risk management in the service industry at our 13th annual Meir Rosenblatt memorial lecture. And we welcomed John Stroup, President and CEO of Belden Inc., to share his perspectives on Industry 4.0 and the emerging technologies that will impact the manufacturing industry and beyond. Both presentations were intellectually stimulating and thought provoking.

We also held our inaugural project competition and awards ceremony, the Project of the Year Symposium, which highlighted our top five corporate projects from the 2016-2017 academic year. The Symposium featured presentations from our student teams that worked on projects for Anheuser-Busch InBev, Belden, Boeing, Emerson, and Monsanto. The teams competed for awards in “Project of the Year,” “Greatest Immediate Business Impact,” and “Presentation Excellence,” and split a $10,500 prize pool. A summary of all our spring projects can be found below.

Our 3rd annual Supply Chain Finance & Risk Management Conference took place on May 14-15. The aim of the conference, which was attended by prominent academic researchers from top business schools from around the world, was to stimulate interactions and knowledge sharing at the interface of operations and finance, and supply chain risk management. The conference featured presentations based on current research trends, including real operations and risk management, crowd funding, finance, trade credit, and hedging. There was also a panel discussion on emerging themes and directions of the field.  One of the initiatives resulting from the conference will be an edited book, comprised of short papers submitted by attendees, to be published this fall as an issue in the Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information and Operations Management book series.

We would also like to share with you some of the corporate projects The Boeing Center and student teams have led for our corporate clients this year.

Lastly, we would like to thank all of our corporate member companies for providing us with the opportunity to offer valuable experiential learning to our students, who dedicated long hours to ensure delivery of insightful and impactful supply chain solutions. We hope you all had an awesome summer, and we look forward to working with you again soon!

Learn more about sponsored projects and membership through The Boeing Center.

Anheuser-Busch InBev

This project revolved around optimizing the inventory mix at distribution centers for some of ABI’s craft beer products, particularly Stella Artois. The team utilized mathematical models with the potential to reduce accessorial costs and increase product freshness. Student team:  Miles Bolinger, Sam Huo, Huyen Nguyen, Roberto Ortiz, and Jon Slack.

Belden

The team working on this project used the QR inventory modeling approach to identify opportunities and costs for improving service levels at PPC, a Belden subsidiary in Syracuse, NY.  Student team:  Bonnie Bao, Michael Stein, Yuying Wang, and Yuyao Zhu.

Boeing

The goal of this project was to determine the most influential order and part characteristics affecting on-time delivery statistics of Boeing’s transactional spare parts business.  Student team:  Vineet Chauhan, Phil Goetz, Brian Liu, Sontaya Sherrell, and Fan Zhang.

Edward Jones

The team’s objective was to analyze the technology deployment process at Edward Jones. They did this by conducting interviews and collecting survey data to run a capacity analysis and generate a personnel network diagram.  Student team:  Huang Deng, Wyatt Gutierrez, Cynthia Huang, Drew Ruchte, and Jamie Yue.

Emerson

The Emerson project team worked with ProTeam’s Richmond Hill facility to determine the optimal product mix, optimize inventory management of stock, and develop a data analysis model to facilitate future upkeep of the system.  Student team:  Kushal Chawla, Serena Chen, Kai Ji, Jeffrey Lantz, and Zoe Zhao.

Express Scripts

The purpose of this project was to optimize Express Scripts’ distribution network by considering logistics costs, formulary configuration, and inventory vs. service levels.  Student team:  Himanshu Aggarwal, Jinsoo Chang, and Janet Qian.

MilliporeSigma

In this project, the team worked with MilliporeSigma’s facility in Temecula, CA to develop a model to help determine the economic production quantity for each SKU based on customer demand, production cost, inventory value, and shelf life.  Student team:  Perri Goldberg, Youngho Kim, Ayshwarya Rangarajan, Prateek Sureka, and Flora Teng.

Monsanto

The objective of this project was to understand, define, and map out the credit processes within Monsanto.  Student team:  Hai Cao, Yanyan Li, Ashwin Kumar, Jonathan Neff, Tom Siepman, and Xukun Zan.

West Pharmaceutical Services

This project sought to accurately compute the approximate safety stock levels, reorder points, and replenishment quantities at West Pharma’s Kinston plant using a continuous review model.  Student team:  Matthew Drory, Rohan Kamalia, Mrigank Kanoi, Ray Tang, and Jiani Zhai.

For more supply chain digital content and cutting-edge research, check us out on the socials [@theboeingcenter] and our website [olin.wustl.edu/bcsci]

• • •

A Boeing Center digital production

Supply Chain  //  Operational Excellence  //  Risk Management

Website  • LinkedIn  • Subscribe  • Facebook  • Instagram  • Twitter  • YouTube