JACKSONVILLE 鈥 In a competition designed to mirror the speed and pressure of real-world logistics decision-making, 最新天美传媒 students had just hours to solve a high-stakes supply chain management problem鈥攁nd one chance to defend it. They made it count.
At the Intermodal Association of North America鈥檚 Academic Challenge, a supply chain management case competition held April 9鈥10 at the University of North Florida, teams moved quickly from industry briefings to deep analysis and rapid-fire presentations. After just five hours of casework, they faced an industry judging panel, with top teams advancing to a live Q&A.
USF鈥檚 team鈥擜ndy Nguyen, Charlotte Dotson, Juliana Escudero Galvanini and Collin Gourley鈥 all supply chain management majors, earned first place among 10 universities nationwide.
The case was based on current trends in the supply chain industry, and the prompt asked whether an east-west railroad merger would strengthen rail competition with trucking. While most teams leaned toward supporting the deal, USF took a different stance.
Andy Nguyen
The team concluded that a merger was not worth the investment. Nguyen emphasized the team鈥檚 broader framing. 鈥淲e proposed not supporting the merger. Instead, we recommended targeted operational improvements such as improving service reliability,鈥 he said.
What set them apart was not just their conclusion, but how they reached it. 鈥淲e framed the problem as an investment decision rather than just an operational one,鈥 Nguyen said. 鈥淏y tying our analysis to ROI and limited growth upside, we showed that the merger鈥檚 incremental value did not justify its risks.鈥
For faculty advisor Rob Hooker, the result reflects both preparation and performance. 鈥淭his event challenged the team with a time-sensitive and complex intermodal logistics case,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey represented the USF Monica Wooden Center for Supply Chain Management and Sustainability and themselves like the true professionals that they are - and I could not be more proud of their success.鈥
Charlotte Dotson
Dotson said classroom discussions on industry trends gave her the background knowledge for the case. The experience reinforced a core lesson: 鈥淚t bridged the gap between classroom theory and real-world industry application, reinforcing how essential it is to base business decisions in data analysis rather than assumptions,鈥 she said.
Nguyen agreed. 鈥淗aving strong insights is important,鈥 he said, 鈥渂ut being able to communicate them clearly is what makes them impactful.鈥