Wu teaching supply chain management

Zhaohui Wu says the Supply Chain and Logistics management MBA track is one of the ways the College of Business is setting itself apart.

“We have this niche on the West Coast,” Wu said. “We’ve established a good place in the market. It’s not a monopoly, but we really have a niche that many schools have not tapped into at all.”

Beginning this fall, in addition to on campus in Corvallis the track is being offered to Portland-area students in an online/in-person hybrid format. It joins Innovation Management, Business Analytics and Organizational Leadership in the Portland lineup, which also includes a graduate certificate in Financial Planning.

Wu, associate professor of supply chain and operations management, exemplifies the industry expertise College of Business faculty bring to their students. A former buyer for LORD Corporation, a designer, manufacturer and marketer of devices and systems for managing mechanical motion and controlling noise and vibration in an array of industries, including aerospace, he also worked as a project manager for a Chinese international trade company and holds a Ph.D. in supply chain management from Arizona State and an MBA from Bowling Green. At OSU, Wu’s teaching and research focus on supply networks, buyer-supplier relationships and environmental management strategy in supply chain operations.

“I got my MBA and got into purchasing just as supply chain started to boom,” he said. “I caught that wave when supply chain management in the world really began to take off in the mid-1990s with outsourcing and globalization.”

Supply Chain and Logistics Management students, Wu said, learn about ethics, leadership, system dynamics, supply networks, complex adaptive systems, negotiation strategy, logistics/distribution, system design and decision modeling.

The ideal supply chain and logistics manager, he continued, is a data-oriented, facts-driven, system-thinking people person.

“It’s really applied economics,” Wu said. “Everything has a supply chain, not just manufacturing. It’s all about value-added systems – it’s always an intriguing area because our economy is based on value creation. Supply chains touch every aspect of a business.”