Final Exercises at the Darden School

Abstract

This brief case discusses the graduation hooding ceremony at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Its purpose is to provide practice in calculating process operating parameters such as takt time, throughput rate, throughput time, and capacity. It also provides an example of the use of Little's Law and Operator Loading Charts. Excerpt UVA-OM-1538 Rev. Aug. 5, 2015 Final Exercises at the Darden School The University of Virginia (U.Va.), founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, was one of the top-ranked public research universities in the United States. Each year, U.Va. held its Final Exercises on the third weekend of May on its historic Lawn. Each U.Va. school also held a separate diploma ceremony where graduates were hooded and received their official U.Va. diplomas. At the Darden School of Business, one of U.Va.'s 11 schools, the diploma ceremony was held outside on the Darden Grounds. The diploma ceremony process was as follows. Students lined up to be hooded. Professors Venkataraman and Rodriguez performed the actual hooding ceremony. Together, they could hood 12students per minute, on average. After hooding, students waited at the top of the steps to the stage until a Faculty Marshal called their name. This past year, Professor Allayannis read the names of the Global MBA for Executives (GEMBA) students, Professor Wilcox read the names of the MBA for Executives (EMBA) students, and Professors Frank and Parmar read the names of the residential MBA students. There were 29 GEMBA students, 65EMBA students, and 315residential MBA students. Once their name was called, students walked across the stage to Dean Bruner, who handed out their diploma. Then they continued on across the rest of the stage and returned to their seat. The administration had set a target of finishing the diploma ceremony in 60 minutes. The Marshals called names at the rate of one every 7 seconds. It took students an average of 8.2 seconds to walk across the stage, shake the Dean's hand, and receive their diploma. After the handshake, it took students an additional 2 seconds to depart from the stage. There were approximately five students on the stage at any given time (one being hooded, two waiting for their names to be called, one in the process of receiving the diploma and congratulatory handshake, and one finishing the walk across the stage.) . . .