Paul Dittmann is the assistant department head for supply chain. He teaches supply chain courses in the business school and lectures in the executive education programs.

Dittmann comes to the University of Tennessee after a thirty-two year career in industry. He has held positions, such as Vice President, Logistics for North America, Vice President Global Logistics Systems, and most recently served as Vice President, Supply Chain Strategy, Projects, and Systems for the Whirlpool Corporation.

Dittmann also manages many of the special projects done for companies, including the supply chain audits. In managing the audits and other projects, 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, Lowes, Fiskars, and the United States Air Force.

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

Dittmann co-authored a recent Harvard Business Review article, “Are You the Weakest Link in Your Company’s Supply Chain?” and also co-authored the book, “The New Supply Chain Agenda,” published by Harvard Business Publishing. He authored “Supply Chain Transformation,” published by McGraw Hill in August 2012, in addition to “Supply Chain Game Changers,” published by Pearson in 2015.

He is on the Board of Directors of Kenco Group, a member of the University of Missouri Industrial Engineering Hall of Fame; was selected as a Rainmaker by DC Velocity Magazine; and was designated one of the Top Ten Supply Chain Thought Leaders in 2013.