Six student teams spent the entire spring, 2009 semester developing solutions for a real problem at Summa Health Systems. In the midst of rapid growth and the robust outlook for the health care sector, Summa wants to improve the way that Human Resources (HR) information and transactions are processed and shared with its more than 10,000 employees across more than 12 locations. Teams met with senior executives, conducted surveys and other primary research, and presented their recommendations to Summa at the end of the semester.
During the Fall 2008 semester, the teams worked on a project for Timken on how to implement web 2.0 tools to increase employee collaboration through the company’s intranet. 500 North American associates completed a survey which the students used to formulate recommendations regarding the use of tools such as Wikis, Blogs, and RSS feeds, translation tools (to address global communications needs), and management policies to encourage knowledge sharing and retention. Each semester a different local firm is chosen; recent participants have included Goodyear, YRC (Roadway), FirstEnergy, Timken, and InfoCision.