Rutgers supply chain management program is ranked among Top 5 in North America

Rutgers Business School’s undergraduate supply chain management program jumped into the No. 5 spot in Gartner’s 2016 ranking of the Top 25 programs in North American universities.

The ranking reflects an improvement of four spots, up from No. 9 in 2014 and moves Rutgers into the company of such schools as No. 1-ranked Penn State and Michigan State, which has the No. 2 ranked program.

For 2016, the Rutgers graduate supply chain management program was ranked No. 7 by Gartner.

"We are thrilled to see that our ongoing efforts to provide comprehensive, quality instruction to our supply chain management students at Rutgers Business School is recognized by Gartner," said Dean Lei Lei who was the founding chair of the Rutgers Supply Chain Management Department. "It is a great accomplishment for our faculty, alumni and corporate sponsors."

Professor Alok Baveja, who chairs the Supply Chain Management Department at Rutgers, said, "This rise in Rutgers SCM program’s ranking occurred despite stiff, mounting competition from top-tier schools that continue to put considerable resources into strengthening and growing their supply chain management programs.”

"A number of factors helped to propel Rutgers to the No. 5 spot, including a comprehensive, cutting-edge curriculum, the program’s growth in size and scope, the high starting salaries of graduating students and a requirement within the curriculum that students get hands-on work experience through an internship, co-op or industry client project," Baveja said.

Read more about the value of an internship in "Successful internship experience lands senior supply chain student special Rutgers University award.”

Gartner said seven strong programs included in its 2014 ranking were forced out by large programs with great curricula, high starting salaries and required or high internship participation.

In addition to top-ranked Penn State and Michigan State, the University of Tennessee was ranked No. 3 and Arizona State University took the No. 4 spot. Rutgers ranked ahead of such schools as Georgia Tech, the University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, the University of Minnesota and Indiana University.

Gartner uses three criteria to make its biennial evaluations: program scope and industry value are weighed the heaviest, collectively reflecting 80 percent of the score a program receives. Program size, which reflects the number of full-time professors as well as full-time students, represents 20 percent of the score.

Program scope reflects whether the curricula is well-rounded and how it compares to Gartner’s supply chain talent attribute model, which represents the variety of disciplines that best prepare students for careers.

To calculate the industry value, Gartner surveys supply chain practitioners to identify the top five university supply chain programs and what programs their company recruits from. Other components of the industry value score include starting salary for graduating students and internship participation.

The rankings are designed to help chief supply chain officers, heads of supply chain strategy and supply chain human resource partners to build university internship and recruiting partners.

"We’re struck by the growth of the major and the sobering realization that even though we are seeing much larger volumes of supply chain graduates, demand still far outstrips supply," said Dana Stiffler, an analyst for Gartner and the author of the North American undergraduate rankings report.