 (L to R) Queen's University students Harish Gopal, Ashtad Pouredehi, Borce Gjorgjievski, Roshan Kalra, Doreen Ashton Wagner (Greenfield Services), Nathania Go, Meagan Rockett (Greenfield Services), and Ted Hincks. |
According to team leader Roshan Kalra, the purpose of the visit was to "provide a look into a company with a direct and observable operating process."
The students chose Greenfield as the subject of an assignment for their MBA course “Operations Management”. Their task is to map Greenfield's existing process and recommend a redesign of the process.
As an entrepreneur, I have always believed in having "fresh eyes" look at our operation, to help us improve the way we do things.
Up until now, this has been mostly through new employees and various trainers and consultants we had hired for various programs. While I had said yes a few months back, I thought the project would not take place because I had heard nothing since. In addition, there was the question of "observable process"; since our work focuses entirely on data, I assumed our process was just a little too abstract.
While I have yet to see their report, I was pleasantly surprised by the calibre of questions from this multi-disciplined team. These students are not just business students. They come from an impressive variety of cultural and educational backgrounds:
My main contact, Roshan Kalra is a law & economics grad. Ted Hincks has an environmental engineering background. Electronics & communications engineering are Harish Gopal's specialties. Ashtad Pouredehi has management consulting & accounting credentials. Nathania Go studied in management engineering, marketing and graphic design, while Borce Gjorgjievski majored in computer science.
Their work is due December 15. We look forward to reading their "process re-engineering" report!
