Ruan began a partnership with Iowa State University (ISU) in 2014 to train students on the leading global transportation management software Oracle Transportation Management (OTM). OTM features myriad capabilities that Ruan customers benefit from every day, including order management, optimization, planning execution and business intelligence.
Proper use of the technologies offered through OTM require highly trained and specialized team members. Such employees are not readily available in the marketplace, so Ruan developed our own training strategies and approached OTM about an academic license for the software. ISU was the first and remains the only academic licensor of OTM.
As part of the partnership, Ruan also offers counsel to ISU professors, shared data and other metrics and provides expert speakers for university career fairs and events. OTM coursework is now featured in the Principles of Transportation course that all supply chain management students must take prior to graduation.
“A team from Ruan meets with students in the Supply Chain Management 461 class every semester to explain the transportation management system used by the company,” said Haozhe Chen, associate professor of supply chain management at the College of Business. “Students are able to access and practice on a sample system that is just like the one used by Ruan employees. By doing this, students see first-hand how a transportation management system works in the real world, providing knowledge and experience during college that helps students when they graduate and seek full-time employment.”
Ruan's involvement in the program is based on a long-running relationship between the company and ISU. Ruan Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Solutions Marty Wadle is an ISU graduate and serves on the executive advisory council for the university's College of Business Supply Chain Management undergraduate program.
"This partnership has seen great success over the past few years. In the six semesters we have been collaborating with ISU, we have trained more than 500 students on this state-of-the-art technology that they may be using in the workplace,” Wadle said. "Ruan is proud to hire several ISU graduates each year, and we feel that preparing these students with best-of-breed tools like OTM is a tremendous opportunity for both the students and future employers."