Tim Kraft is the director of the Operational Excellence module of the Global Leaders Program. He is an Associate Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Management.
His research examines environmental and social responsibility issues in supply chains. He’s been involved in a wide range of research areas, including investigating how supply chain transparency can influence consumers’ and companies’ decisions in social responsibility contexts, examining collaborative methods to motivate suppliers to improve their sustainability practices, and studying companies’ and non-governmental organizations’ decisions regarding environmental investment decisions.
Tim’s research has appeared in leading operations management journals such as Manufacturing and Service Operations Management and Production and Operations Management. In 2020, he was named co-winner of the POMS Paul Kleindorfer Award in Sustainability. For his teaching and case writing, Tim was named the 2018 Outstanding Faculty Member at the University of Virginia (Darden) and is a two-time winner of the INFORMS Case Competition.
Tim previously taught at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and was a visiting faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He received his doctorate degree from Stanford University.
We asked Tim some questions about his work with the Global Leaders Program cohort:
Summarize what cohort members learn in your module:
The module I co-teach with Frank Rimalovski from NYU is customer-centric operations. The module specifically examines how to align customer needs with operational delivery. Specifically, we first focus on the customer-side of a venture, identifying and understanding the customer and what they want, as well as, validating our ideas. We then turn our attention to the back-end operations and look at how can we deliver on that customer promise by looking at ways we can eliminate waste in a process and get to the root cause of our issues.
You’re a Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University – when you’re used to working with business majors, what are some of your observations teaching musicians about these concepts within the GLP context?
I always love teaching non-business/engineering focused groups. They always bring new and unique perspectives on the material. In this regard, I often learn as much as the group I’m teaching which is always enjoyable for me.
Why is it important for musicians/teaching artists to have these business skills?
Speaking for my content in the module, I like to joke that process is like the force – it’s everywhere. We go through a process to get up for work, order lunch, and make improvements at work. In this regard, yes the material is designed for business contexts, but the reality is that the concepts we are teaching are applicable also to students current careers and even everyday life.
You’ve been teaching this GLP module for six years – what have you noticed during that time?
I can’t believe how fast time has flown. The change that I’ve noticed and loved is the increased diversity in the groups every year. I love that both the nationalities and ages of participants have grown each year. I think this adds a lot to the experience – again both for the group, as well as the teachers.
Where can we read some of your work?
Here’s a recent article we published in Sloan Management Review:
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-supply-chain-transparency-boosts-business-value/.
It’s the culmination of a number of years work on the topic of supply chain transparency.
Learn more about the Global Leaders Program Module Directors here
Learn more about the Global Leaders Program curriculum here
