Susan Purdum

Color portrait of Susan Purdum

Associate Teaching Professor

Department Supply Chain & Information Systems
Office Address 471 Business Building
Phone Number 814-865-7789
Email Address sbp3@psu.edu

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As a teaching professor in supply chain management, my passion is to prepare students for a challenging, yet rewarding career in supply chain through business application, scenario planning, problem analysis tools, and adopting an end-to-end systems perspective.

Prior to teaching, I served Penn State’s Center for Supply Chain Research (CSCR) in applied research, collaboration with corporate clients, and executive education. During this tenure, I was offered a Faculty-in-Residence position with IBM's Public Sector Practice to advance talent development among their supply chain consultants.

My career in industry spanned 20 years in engineering management, manufacturing site management, and customer relations. My teams built factories, closed factories, re-located operations domestically or overseas; launched new products; installed production lines after securing capital; and orchestrated logistics strategies/fulfillment with big box retailers. Companies included Avery Dennison Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, and The Hershey Company.

Expertise

Trading partner collaboration, risk assessment, building operations resilience, supplier qualification and development, connecting supply chain to financials, new product development and introduction, business process simplification and design for manufacturability.

Education

MBA, General Management (Organizational Behavior within Manufacturing), The University Of Massachusetts, 1987

BS, Industrial Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 1980

Honors and Awards