25 October, 2019

GE Healthcare in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork welcomed CIT MA in Global Business Practice students for a site visit as part of their live case continuous assessment.

The visit, organised by the Department of Marketing and International Business, gave students an insight into the operation of a top-class FDA regulated manufacturing facility serving a global market. The visit will form the basis of a shared group assignment for modules in both Operations Strategy and Business Relationship Management.

The CIT visitors were greeted by GE Healthcare HR Manager Damien Cahill who gave an overview of the facility. This was followed by a tour of the plant, acquainting students with lean manufacturing production processes in a highly regulated environment. They also learned about the complex labelling and packaging procedures adhered to by GE Healthcare in serving customers in over 90 countries with individual healthcare regulatory requirements.

The group then met with members of senior management and were briefed on the development of the facility, its position within the GE Healthcare group globally, markets served, supply chain planning processes, lean systems within the operation function, competitive advantage and threats and opportunities.

Students were also given an insight to the companies preparations for Brexit, and the impact it’s had on businesses in Ireland whose supply chain not only traverses the UK but who also trade with the UK as customer and supplier.

Feedback from students was extremely positive. MA student Brona Cotter said, “We found the site visit very insightful and interesting as they gave us the opportunity to understand the company and its processes within the supply chain area. We greatly appreciate the time and effort provided by Elton and the rest of the team and felt we got a great deal of information from our visit".

This visit and the information shared with students will be developed in their projects giving them the opportunity to apply theory to practice in a real operations environment.

Elton Chambers, Lean Manager at GE Healthcare said, “In industry as in life you can never stop learning, involvement with Cork Institute of Technology and the MA program offers GE Healthcare Cork a unique opportunity to have students from the Global Business practice class evaluate our supply chain relationships and operations strategy giving us new perspective and views”.

CIT lecturer Sean Donovan said, “These site visits have immense importance in student development because they can see how companies operate in today's competitive environment. Our collaboration with GE Healthcare has been of huge benefit to the learning process of our students on the MA in Global Business Practice”.

If you would like to find out more about collaboration opportunities within CIT, call 021 4335302 or email extendedcampus@cit.ie