Penn State's Enterprise Integration Consortium has it's beginnings in the SAP University Alliance Program. The Alliance Program, coordinated by SAP, is an amalgamation of innumerable Educational institutions and organizations.

A brief History
SAP Inc. first approached Penn State's Smeal College (Department of Business Logistics) in the Spring of 1997 regarding the Alliance Program. However, due to various financial constraints, this proposal was not followed through. In Fall 1997, contact was reestablished with SAP's new leadership in the University Alliance program. The new proposal was thoroughly studied and by Fall 1998 Penn State joined the SAP University Alliance Program. Talks also progressed with Unisys Corporation for support hardware for the program, with an agreement being signed in Spring 1999.
All this resulted in the installation of state of the art servers and the SAP R/3 software (generously gifted by Unisys Corporation and SAP Inc. respectively) at Penn State's University Park campus in Spring 1999. Training for instructors and faculty on the new technologies was also completed in the same year. Courses incorporating the new ERP software began to be offered in the academic year 1999-2000. For more detailed information on our education efforts, please look at the EIC Curriculum Development page.

Salient Objectives and Features of the Penn State - SAP University Alliance Program

• The EIC aims to be at the forefront of education and research in Enterprise Integration. The Alliance program provides Penn State students with access to state-of-the-art Enterprise software like SAP R/3. This will be used to help students build a solid background in the fundamentals of enterprise integration and allied field whilst exposing them to current technologies.
• This exposure and education will give Penn State students a competitive hiring advantage while giving employers access to well prepared graduates, skilled in the latest concepts & tools.
• It is important to note that the program is NOT a training program for SAP software. We will use SAP R/3 to teach fundamental concepts related to the engineering and management of supply chains and the use and management of enterprise information systems. The software is not only an excellent tool but the Alliance will help EIC to incorporate the latest requirements and technologies in our curriculum development efforts.
• The Alliance will also strengthen Penn State's research in Enterprise Integration.
• Student enthusiasm and support has also seen the establishment of a SAP Student Interest Group at Penn State.
• The SAP UAP, like all EIC efforts is multi-disciplinary and is being run across multiple Departments, Colleges and Locations of Penn State. While the hardware and software are located and installed at the University Park campus, the system has been configured to support about 250 concurrent users and the system can be accessed from all partner locations (both current and future) in the Penn State system.

Additional Information

To get a better view of the Enterprise Integration Consortium (and Penn State's) alliance with the SAP UAP, please take a look at Dr. Ravindran's presentation to the SAP University Alliance Program's 3rd Annual Curriculum Congress at Chicago (2000).
For more information on the hardware and software implementation for the program, please contact Mr. Mike Errigo