Alumni Spotlight

Cara Wick, MBA '06
Senior Financial Analyst
Intel Corporation

It wasn’t long ago that Cara Wick was in the classroom as a full-time MBA student at The University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Management. In just two years since her graduation in 2006, Cara has already made a tremendous impact in her industry; receiving Intel’s “Hot Stuff” award. This prestigious, quarterly award includes a requirement that the project net at least $1MM to be considered. Cara’s project ended with a net of $3MM, far surpassing the requirements.

In Q3'06, with the help of manager Tracy Pruitt, Cara Wick created a new ordering process that used inventory management science to create a more efficient inventory management system. Cara established a disciplined inventory model in which the re-order quantities were based on the average demand for that product as well as the stage of the product in the life cycle. As such, the ramping products were given a larger re-order quantity and the mature and EOL products were given a reduced re-order quantity, thereby reducing the historical scrap when a product was discontinued. This inventory model was implemented in January of 2007, and the results were immediate. The new model reduced label expenses by ~$2.5M in the 1H'07 by burning through existing inventory (6 months of inventory was reduced to 6 weeks) on products that did not require a reorder under the new process and establishing re-order points based on product maturity.