Ruan, a premier provider of Integrated Supply Chain Solutions, is proud to celebrate 10 years of partnership with Iowa State University (ISU). In 2014, Ruan leadership, in collaboration with the ISU Ivy College of Business, launched a program through which ISU Supply Chain Management students get access to and gain proficiency in using the Oracle Transportation Management Suite (OTM) and Fusion Transportation Intelligence software. OTM, the leading global transportation management software, is a web-based platform that delivers several core transportation and logistics capabilities including system architecture, order management, optimization and planning, freight audit and payment, report analysis, and more.
The partnership between ISU and Ruan marks the first time OTM was embedded into a college curriculum. In addition to facilitating the procurement of an educational license with Oracle, Ruan also provides its own OTM experts as guest lecturers for ISU’s Supply Chain Management 461 Principles of Transportation classes. Each semester, a team from Ruan visits the classroom to introduce students to OTM and walk them through the entire lifecycle of an order, from how an order gets optimized, turned into a load, tendered, and executed, to visibility, freight auto-pay, business intelligence reporting, and more. As part of the partnership, Ruan offers counsel to ISU professors, shared data and other metrics, and provides expert speakers for university career fairs and events.
Iowa State Professor Bill Rose, who teaches Principles of Transportation, said, “Students work hands-on to run through the full project and learn how to route the vehicles, how to look for those different constraints, how to grab data from what they’re doing. This gives them a competitive advantage when they land their first job because they’ll be comfortable with the process and the flow of data and how that data is used.”
Ruan’s involvement in the program is based on a long-running relationship between the company and Iowa State University. Ruan Chief Commercial Officer Marty Wadle, who spearheaded the program with Oracle and the Ivy College of Business Supply Chain Forum, is an Iowa State Supply Chain Management alumni and serves on the Iowa State University Supply Chain Forum.
“Over the past 10 years, Ruan has worked with thousands of Supply Chain Management students, giving them hands-on experiential learning in TMS optimization, tender, execution, visibility, freight pay, and business intelligence reporting,” Wadle said. “These students were already ahead of the curve as they chose to attend ISU, one of the best supply chain programs in the country. Ruan is honored to have a hand in creating a curriculum that includes Oracle Transportation Management, which sets graduates apart to an even greater degree.”
Joe Meek, Business Analyst for Ruan’s Integrated Solutions department, can personally attest to the value of the courses. “Through live demonstrations and user exercises, I gained practical knowledge of how a Transportation Management System (TMS) can effectively solve complex transportation problems,” said Meek. “As someone deeply interested in technology's role in supply chain management, working within OTM showcased its potential to provide an effective and efficient means of generating value for companies involved in goods transportation.”
Ruan looks forward to continuing this partnership and educating the next generation of supply chain professionals. Read more about this partnership at the Oracle website here.