Chattanooga, June 27, 2003.  The Tennessee Board of Regents has presented its Academic Excellence Award to the FedEx Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Memphis. The award was presented to the Center’s associate director, Dr. Mohammad Amini, at the Board’s quarterly meeting in Chattanooga yesterday. The award recognizes especially noteworthy achievement in the academic realm at colleges and universities within the 45-campus TBR system. U of M President Shirley Raines, who was at the Board meeting and the award presentation, said of the honor, “The FedEx Center for Supply Chain Management is one of the signature programs at the University of Memphis. It is a project-driven program, in that its purpose is to work with businesses to help them deliver their products or services faster, more economically, and with improved quality. “The University is very pleased to be able to provide the research in supply chain management via our FedEx Technology Institute, which is named for our corporate partner, which is well known for its revolutionary advancements in supply chain management.” The Center, which is the cornerstone of the University’s new FedEx Technology Institute, conducts research projects and educational programs for FedEx, key FedEx customers, and other organizations. Its many clients include Ford Motor Co., L.L. Bean, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Hewlett Packard, Best Buy, First Tennessee, Smith and Nephew, the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, The Med, Methodist Healthcare, Shelby County government, the Memphis Housing Authority. Projects undertaken by the Center for its clients have dealt with new product development, order fulfillment, international supply chain management, customer service and support, facility location, warehousing and distribution center operations, and inventory management. The Center’s research projects provide “real world” business exposure for faculty and students at the same time that they are providing solutions to actual problems for businesses. So far, more than 40 such projects have been completed. All Center activities are supported by external funding. The Center for Supply Chain Management was originally created as the FedEx Center for Cycle Time Research in 1993 as a strategic alliance between FedEx and the University of Memphis. It operates in conjunction with the Marketing Department of the Fogelman College of Business and Economics. The Center’s director is Dr. Ernie Nichols. Its associate directors are Amini and Dr. Brian Janz, and its assistant director is Laura Edwards. The Tennessee Board of Regents, which honored the Center, governs the University of Memphis and five other universities, 13 two-year colleges, and 26 technology centers in Tennessee. It is the nation’s sixth largest system of higher education, with more than 180,000 students enrolled throughout the state.