Georgia Tech's School of Industrial and Systems Engineering's (ISyE) this week touted the success of its Executive Master's in International Logistics (EMIL) program in helping companies reduce global logistics costs and improve supply chain efficiencies by grooming their supply chain executives.

The 18-month EMIL master's program keeps key employees on-the-job while teaching them techniques for decreasing logistics costs and improving supply chain efficiencies. Courses are delivered through faculty lectures, industry speakers, case studies, group projects and company presentations.

"There was a lot of valuable networking with other companies," said Chris Donnely, forward model planning manager for Ford Motor Co. "We learned a lot about best practices from other organizations, which is an excellent source of ideas for rapid improvement."

Instead of a master's thesis, EMIL participants complete an 18-month "real-world" business project, tailored to add value to their sponsoring organizations. During international residences, participants also meet with government officials to discuss customs issues, taxes and trade agreements.

"Participating in the EMIL program was a key decision in my career," said Greg Easterlin, chief information officer and vice president of supply chain management for Millikin & Co. "The program enhanced my knowledge to enable me to bring immediate and direct benefits to our organization, including reorganization of our supply chain, lead-time reductions, a significant reduction in inventory and the use of more analytical tools replacing intuition."

ISyE, which itself has been named as the top industrial engineering graduate program for 13 of the past 14 years by U.S. News and World Report, noted that 50 percent of EMIL participants have an MBA, 15 percent are vice presidents, 45 percent are at a director level and most participants have 10 to 15 years of on-the-job experience.

"I learned how to tie supply chain initiatives to financial benefits," said John Kehoe, director of information technology for global supply chain for Baxter Healthcare. "Now I have a better understanding of what lies behind supply chain software packages. It's helped demystify the software black box."

One of the first schools of its type, ISyE was established in 1924. The EMIL program was instituted in 2002.