Emory and Henry College currently offers an Operations Management class for its business majors. Each class is broken up into teams and given an assignment to engage with businesses. Recently, three business students from this program visited Strongwell. This student team chose and interviewed a “for-profit “and a “not-for-profit” organization to study during the semester with the purpose of gaining a comprehensive understanding of how operations management functions within businesses. Each team had to independently arrange an interview and prepare a paper summarizing its findings and observations.

Emory and Henry students met with Strongwell’s Tekai Shu (Social Media and Business Development Manager) for their in-person interview. During their visit and facility tour, students asked questions regarding how Strongwell’s operations team made decisions about processes, quality benchmarks, capacity, ordering, scheduling, supply chain, and inventory. The students also wanted to know why composites serve a unique purpose against traditional materials. During the Q &A session, students were provided with an understanding as to how globalization and branding provided opportunities for Strongwell to remain as a composites leader with its in-house engineering, manufacturing and research & development resources.

At the conclusion of this project, Tekai Shu was invited as a guest in an Emory and Henry class session to illustrate how effective operations management within a manufacturing environment leads to community impact, industrial development and branding in a digital era.

Many thanks to Barter Theatre; County of Washington, VA; Crossroads Medical Mission; Dominion Carton Corporation; Highlands Community Services; Highlands Fellowship Church; Highlands Union Bank; Johnston Memorial Hospital; KVAT/Food City; Lebanon Apparel Corporation; State Street United Methodist Church; Strongwell Corporation; Tre's Pizza; The Williams Company, Inc.; United Way of Southwest Virginia; Virginia Holocaust Museum; Universal Fibers, Inc.; and ZF Corporation.

Strongwell would like to finally thank Emory and Henry College and Professor Fowlkes for choosing Strongwell as one of their business case studies.