Experiential / Reality-based Learning / May 19, 2015

Juniors Take the Spotlight at Annual QUEST Conference

Juniors Take the Spotlight at Annual QUEST Conference

For the first time, junior students in the Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams (QUEST) honors program had the chance to show off their quality management, innovation and teamwork skills to a crowd of over 300 people at the spring QUEST conference hosted at the Riggs Alumni Center on Wednesday, May 6, 2015.

This year the first cohort of juniors, Cohort 21, was admitted in the spring semester to work on nine different consulting projects. These students spent all semester working side-by-side with a faculty adviser and companies to solve real-life problems in the areas of quality management, process improvement, and system design.

QUEST is operated jointly by the Robert H. Smith School of Business, the A. James Clark School of Engineering, and the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. As it approaches its 25th anniversary in 2017, QUEST now has over 1,000 alumni, and 270 current students.

At the conference, students from all three disciplines presented their findings and improvements in a celebration of months of hard work and preparation.

Students worked with clients including:

  • ATK Defense Group
  • BD
  • Bloomberg
  • CFR Engineering Services
  • Howard County Public Schools
  • Lutron
  • Northrop Grumman
  • TAMKO
  • Unilever

Giving students the opportunity to work with clients on real-life business problems is a win-win situation for both students and businesses. Many of the companies keep coming back to QUEST with new projects every year, and during on-site visits, the QUEST students often see past project suggestions being implemented.

“The projects this year were exceptional. I can’t think of a single team that didn’t go above and beyond what the client asked,” said Kylie Goodell King, QUEST program director.

The Outstanding Capstone Award this year went to students working with HAAT Consulting. They created a clean and automated database for CFR Engineering Services, a small but growing company located in Germantown, Md. The winning team included Aaron Sirken, mechanical engineering ’16; Hailey Weitzman, computer science ’16; Avi Silvermetz, finance ’15; and Tommy Johnson, electrical engineering ’16.

The team recognized the client had a large amount of data located in various spreadsheets and files, and decided to create a centralized database the company could search through. They also automated the process using search queries, so the client could generate proposals for their own clients simply by entering the criteria they desired. The team helped CFR add 16 percent more projects per year, and saved them about 62 days per year.

See photo gallery on Facebook.

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About the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business

The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and flex MBA, executive MBA, online MBA, business master’s, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia.

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