About the Author
Robert Palevich is a full-time professor at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne, Indiana (IPFW). His teaching areas are E-commerce and B2B, SAP and ERP, Lean Black Belt Six Sigma, Operation Management, Statistics, Discriminant Analysis Linear Programming, and Web Page Design. His research interests are Lean manufacturing and the Lean service industries, Six Sigma and process analysis, RFID, and the sustainable green supply chain.
He is the director of the Business Enterprise Systems and Technology Institute (BEST) at IPFW. The purpose of the BEST Institute is to inform, educate, and help existing companies attract new businesses and industries by creating a center for knowledge management and networking for all the companies in Northeast Indiana. With the cooperation of the BEST Institute and RP Global Technology Solutions, he received a $250,000 grant for the University from the Strategic Skill Initiative (SSI) for teaching the most relevant and current technologies.
Palevich is also President and CEO of RP Global Technology Solutions LLC. The company specializes in advanced technology for companies throughout the state. The technology includes RFID, Visual and Sensor Equipment, Six Sigma, ERP, Lean Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and CPFR technology.
Prior to teaching at the university, he has had 25 years of supply chain experience in logistics and enterprise resource planning at a $2.0 billion wholesaler (Do it Best Corp.) with 4,500 stores worldwide. His responsibility as CTO was to bring in all new Internet, Electronic Commerce, EDI, and Supply Chain Management (SCM) technology. He was involved with the development and integration of the Business Process Design (BPD) of the Supply Chain, Logistics, WMS systems, Knowledge Management (KM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Supplier Compliance, and integrated workflow in Purchasing. He had collaborated with approximately 25 Fortune 500 companies in the process of developing certification standards between the respective companies and sharing technological innovations. He has also traveled in North America, Latin America, and Asia in consulting and educational roles.
Palevich programmed the entire Supply Chain and Inventory Control Forecasting Program, which was named FOURTE, for Do it Best Corp. FOURTE stands for Forecasting and Ordering Using Regression, Time Series, and Econometrics. The company used this program for well over 10 years to enjoy the industry-leading service levels and inventory turns.
His education and background are as detailed here:
SAS INSTITUTE CARY NC:
• Completed all their classes for statistics, ETS Statistical Analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA, Box and Jenkins, ARMA, ARIMA, Time Series, Correlation Analysis, Categorical Analysis, Factor Analysis, Regression Analysis, Polynomial Regression, Non Linear Regression, Neural Networks
INDIANA UNIVERSITY: MBA
PURDUE UNIVERSITY: post-graduate research in Advanced Mathematics and Statistics. Dr. David Bendixon
INDIANA UNIVERSITY: MSBA
PURDUE UNIVERSITY: BS in Industrial Management
Certified by CompTIA in 2008 as an “RFID and Supply Chain Certified Professional”