Dave Beasley and Professor Chen discuss Intermodal Hub activities with students.

To complement their course work, students in the Dual Master degree Program (DMP) and the Global Logistics Scholars (GLS) program tour various manufacturing and distribution centers throughout the semester. On April 4th, the group toured Norfolk Southern's John W. Whitaker Intermodal Terminal in Austell.

"In class, we teach operations research, industrial engineering, and information systems, but in an abstract way. To provide a link between what they learn in class with real world practice, we schedule about 10 tours throughout the semester of various manufacturing, distribution, and transportation facilities," said Professor Chen Zhou. "These tours really complement what they learn in classes."

Norfolk Southern's Hub Manager, Dave Beasley, led the tour of the terminal. The first stop was the control tower where students could view the 450 acres of the terminal that includes 3,300 parking spaces as well as 20,000 feet of unloading track.

The tour stops long enough to capture a group photograph.

Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) is a Virginia-based holding company with headquarters in Norfolk. It owns a major freight railroad, Norfolk Southern Railway Company, which operates approximately 21,800 route miles in 22 states, the District of Columbia and the province of Ontario. The Austell hub is an intermodal hub. The terminal, the largest intermodal facility east of the Mississippi River, expedites the movement of containerized freight between the Northeast and Southwest and between the Northwest and Southeast. It transfers rail freight to road and road to rail.

Students on tour were: Paul Berman (France) GLS; Christian Buchmann (U.S.) GLS; Wei Chuen Chan (Singapore) DMP; Steve Chu (U.S.) GLS; Magdalene Chua (Singapore) DMP; Serhan Duran (Turkey) GLS; Tobias Gefaeller (Germany) GLS; Swanand Gupte (India) GLS; Sin Man Kwan (HK) DMP; Yin Sian Lai (Singapore) DMP; Jin Xiang Lee (Singapore) DMP; Chya-Yi Liaw (Taiwan) DMP; Keyao Liu (China) DMP; Wen-Chung Lu (Taiwan) GLS; Hiroki Muraoka (Japan) GLS; Ramanathan Muthiah (India) DMP; Han Meng Neo (Singapore) DMP; Evren Ozkaya (Turkey) GLS; Najmuddin Patwa (India) DMP; Qian Qian (China) DMP; Bo Qin (China) DMP; Kaushik Surendran (India) GLS; Yan Ting Tan (Singapore) DMP; Athmika Vishvesh (India) GLS; and Rui Wang (China) DMP.

Norfolk Southern's Intermodal Terminal: loading road freight to rail

More on the Dual Degree Program: The Dual Master of Science Degree in Logistics and Supply Chain Management is a prestigious 18-month program pioneered in collaboration between the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Georgia Tech. The program was created to develop logistics professionals with logistics and supply chain management knowledge as well as research and industrial expertise in the context of and the Asia Pacific region. The program, which is jointly conducted by NUS and Georgia Tech, leads to two degrees: a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and a Master of Science in Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

More on the Global Logistics Scholars: The Global Logistics Scholar is a certificate program sponsored by the Supply Chain Logistics Institute (SCL) at Georgia Tech. The curriculum is designed for MSIE students and includes logistics seminars and tours, TLI professional education short courses, and other special events (at least one event per semester). Selected students participate in academic and extra-curricular activities with students enrolled in other international programs, allowing them to interact with logistics faculty, industry professionals and potential employers.