Article by Dr. Joseph P. Bailey, QUEST Executive Director

Project of the Year, Team Saucy Solutions

Thursday December 9, 2010 was a marvelous day highlighting the accomplishments of our QUEST Seniors as they completed their capstone course on a consulting and innovation practicum.  Each year, the QUEST community gathers to hear QUEST Seniors present their findings from their capstone learning course BMGT/ENES490H:  QUEST Consulting and Innovation Practicum, or 490 for short.  This year twelve teams of students presented their projects to their classmates in the QUEST Honors Program, University of Maryland faculty and staff, family, friends, and—perhaps most importantly—their client.  Each team of four or five QUEST Seniors was asked to work with an external client to solve a real problem as part of the 490 class.  The class is the culmination of learning in the QUEST Honors Program and the QUEST Senior Conference is the culmination of the students’ hard work in the class.  This year, our QUEST Seniors did an outstanding job of applying their knowledge to the clients’ problems and professionally presenting their results.

The twelve student teams worked on a variety of projects that have significance to their clients and beyond.  Although each project and client is unique, there were several recurring themes among this year’s projects.  The first theme was process improvement.  This year our students made recommendations to their clients to improve the process of reducing wastewater (Tulkoff Food Products), improve processing efficiency of applications (University of Baltimore), better managing the use of facilities within a supply chain (Lockheed Martin), and better implementing project management (Nika Architects + Engineers).  The second theme was systems thinking applied to strategy.  Students made recommendations to better identify university-corporate research and development partnerships (ATK), better design an organizational leadership development program (Lockheed Martin), examine the potential of expanding fluid logic technology into new markets (Bowles Fluidics), and better identify companies that have an impact on competitiveness (ATK).  The third theme was quality management and systemic design for information technology.  Students made recommendations to better design integrative web interfaces for emergency management (Integrity Consulting), better functionality for security applications (SAIC),better predictive uses of government data for health applications (SAIC), and improve assessment of the viability of integrated and automated security prevention tools (Force 3).

While each of these themes and projects were scoped to one portion of a client’s business, the impact of the results of the student recommendations goes beyond their just their client.    For example, improved management of the information technology infrastructure can help ensure that emergency management personnel can better coordinate their life-saving efforts in the event of an emergency.  Another exampled may be the increased output of innovations that may be possible through increased research and development efforts between companies and universities.  Yet another example may be better use of scarce resources of energy and water to help companies like Tulkoff save money and—in the process—help reduce Tulkoff’s impact on the environment.

The project that addressed Tulkoff’s problem of wastewater was selected by QUEST Seniors as the “Project of the Year.”  This honor is given to a team of students by their classmates on the eve before the QUEST Senior Conference.  Student voted for the one project that best addressed their client’s problem, showed an innovative approach to the solution, and best presented the results of their hard work.  Although many teams did an outstanding job this year and the voting was close, the team called “Saucy Solutions” was selected by their peers for this year’s honor.

I was delighted to see so many in our QUEST community participate in this year’s event.  Our juniors and sophomores were there in force to support their classmates and build their anticipation for their 490 class in 2011 or 2012.  Our alumni were there in significant numbers as well.  Many of our alumni met prior to the QUEST Senior Conference for a QUEST Alumni Board meeting.  More information about this Board and their activities will be highlighted in subsequent editions of QUESTPress.  Many of our corporate partners were there including the two conference sponsors ATK and PwC.  I am particularly thankful for their support.  Many of my colleagues from the University of Maryland were there including the Dean from the Robert H. Smith School of Business, Dean Anand Anandalingam who addressed the gathering.  Finally, the friends and family of our QUEST Seniors were there to support our QUEST Seniors and help celebrate this tremendous accomplishment.

Congratulations to our QUEST Seniors and thank you to those who helped make the event a great success!  I particularly want to acknowledge:  my co-instructor David Ashley who is such a tremendous asset to our program; Schquita Goodwin was an outstanding teaching assistant; Nicole Coomber for coordinating such wonderful projects;  Kylie Goodell for her support and efforts to engage alumni; and Melanie Ashton for making the evening such a success!

More information about this year’s QUEST Senior Conference can be found on the web: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/news/stories/2010/QUESTConference.aspx

View photos from the Senior Conference by visiting this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/NCottrell/SeniorConference2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCJCCm-nfgPe6nwE&feat=email