Harvey Mudd Earns Top Honors in APICS Supply Chain Competition

Outscoring both undergraduate and graduate-level competitors, a team of students from Harvey Mudd College received top honors at the APICS West Coast student case competition sponsored by the Inland Empire Chapter of APICS, the leading association for supply chain and operations professionals.

First-time entrants in the APICS competition, the Harvey Mudd team of senior engineering majors Alexa Le, Joe Sinopoli, Shaan Gareeb and Katherine (Yoo Jeong) Shim won first place in the undergraduate division as well as the overall Grand Prize during the competition, held Feb. 17–18 in San Diego. They will represent the APICS Southwest District at the organization’s international conference in October in San Antonio, Texas.

The Harvey Mudd engineers, advised by Kash Gokli, professor of manufacturing practice, competed against 23 teams from 17 universities/colleges and three countries. They were given a supply chain problem to be solved using a computer simulation game then developed solutions and presented their rationale for the solutions. Teams were judged on presentation and return on investment from the case simulation. In addition, in the final round, all teams were grilled on their rationale and logic behind solving the given supply chain problem.

“This competition is about leadership, decision making, strategic thinking, creative problem solving and communication. What a great experience for the students!” said Gokli.

“I am especially thrilled because Harvey Mudd is an APICS Inland Empire Chapter student team,” said APICS Inland Empire President and competition Chair Lisa Anderson.