Paul Dittmann is the assistant department head for supply chain management at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business. He came to UT after a 32-year career in industry. He held several key leadership positions for the Whirlpool Corporation, including vice president of logistics for North America, VP of global logistics systems and VP of supply chain strategy, projects and systems.

Dittmann manages many special projects done for companies, including supply chain audits. He has consulted or done executive education for numerous firms, such as Walgreens, Pfizer, Walmart, UPS, Boise, Tyco, Honeywell, Genuine Parts, Cintas, Cummins, Cooper Tire, United Smokeless Tobacco, Radio Systems Corp., Johnson & Johnson, Estee Lauder, the United States Army, the Marine Corps, Michelin, Brunswick, Nissan, Lockheed Martin, Race Trac Petroleum, GAF Corporation, OfficeMax, Sony, Keller Group, GlaxoSmithKline, Cooper Tire, Lowe’s, Fiskars and the United States Air Force.

He has also taught numerous public seminars in lean manufacturing, global business and supply chain excellence and has spoken at conferences on these and other topics. He has been a certified instructor for the Project Management Institute.

Dittmann co-authored the Harvard Business Review article, “Are You the Weakest Link in Your Company’s Supply Chain?” and co-authored the book The New Supply Chain Agenda, published by Harvard Business Publishing. He authored Supply Chain Transformation, (McGraw Hill, 2012) and Supply Chain Game Changers (Pearson, 2015). He is on the board of directors of Kenco Group and a member of the University of Missouri Industrial Engineering Hall of Fame. Dittman was selected as a Rainmaker by DC Velocity Magazine and designated one of the Top Ten Supply Chain Thought Leaders in 2013.