IU Southeast professor speaks on creativity at operational excellence conference

13th October 2015

NEW ALBANY, Ind. (Oct. 13, 2015) — Brian Atwater, assistant professor of operations and supply chain management in the School of Business at IU Southeast, will present the paper “Using Creative Problem Solving to Address Supply Chain Issues” at the 41st Partners in Business Operational Excellence Conference at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, on Oct. 14.

This marks the third time Atwater has been invited to address the prestigious gathering, which brings together experts to focus on methods for developing, training and encouraging individuals to seek perfection within organizations.

Atwater’s talk addresses a frequent misconception in organizational thinking: the idea that creativity and standardization cannot coexist.

“We have become very good at implementing solutions for consistency, quality and output,” Atwater said. “But too little thought is given to different ways of doing things.”

A preoccupation with “best practices” can lead to stagnation, according to Atwater, and an insistence on one single solution can end up costing an organization dearly if procedures that prove themselves to be poorly designed must be rethought.

On the contrary, integrating creativity at early phases of internal conversations can help an organization reap significant dividends. Companies such as GE and Google invest heavily in creativity as a driver of innovation in areas that directly improve the bottom line, Atwater says.

“Brainstorming is just one of hundreds of creative problem-solving techniques out there,” said Atwater, who points to group exercises such as piggybacking and reverse brainstorming as examples of techniques that can be used by organizations of any size to stimulate thinking outside the proverbial box.

Bringing cutting-edge concepts and insights gained from conversations with industry leaders back to class helps faculty give IU Southeast students the benefits of a real-world perspective on current issues, Atwater said.

Past presenters at Partners in Business events have included former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman. Partners in Business is a student-run organization housed within the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. Its mission is to extend learning beyond the classroom by connecting innovative thought leaders, business practitioners and aspiring students.

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