I’m Jane Siegler: professor of supply chain analytics at Butler University, former founder of a company in Brazil’s cosmetics industry, and an advisor to companies and governments. I turn research on disruption, tariffs and sustainability into decisions people can act on.
I ran a business before I studied one, so I start from the decision you have to make, not from a model I want to use.
Find where your exposure really sits: second and third tiers, single sources, tariff paths and cluster dependencies.
Done before: supply-network mapping of 40 Indiana manufacturers for Conexus Indiana, and of the state’s defense-manufacturing supply chains with the IEDC.
Talks and hands-on sessions on what is changing in supply chains, and what leaders should do about it on Monday.
Done before: Capitol Hill, Morris Series at Lilly Corporate Center (three years), Inchainge educator panel reaching 350+ faculty in 48 countries.
Bring a real problem to a research team or to students who will work it hard, with rigor and a deadline.
Done before: applied projects with Cummins and Tower Semiconductor, and 10+ client organizations through Butler’s MBA consulting projects.
My doctoral research asked a simple question: when something happens to one company, why and how does it reach the others? I borrowed the physics of a skipping stone. Each touch of the water makes its own ripple, and the ripples meet, amplify or fade.
I tested it in the field: 131 interviews and 22 site visits across six supply chains of up to seven tiers. That lens still shapes everything I do, from tariff exposure to how a classroom decision in Indiana lands somewhere else.
How shocks travel through multi-tier networks, and how firms build the capability to absorb them.
Tariff uncertainty, US–China trade, reshoring and nearshoring, and what they mean for Midwest manufacturers.
Why industries gather where they do, from Bavaria’s automotive cluster to Indiana’s supplier base.
Measuring what matters instead of what is easy, so sustainability claims hold up to the numbers.
Delegations, plant visits, conferences and research partners since 2018. Each pin is a place where the work happened. Tap or hover for what it was.
“To teach business to future business leaders, one must engage with the business, both in our backyard and around the world.”
My teaching philosophy, since 2018
Simulations, plant tours, live client projects and a weekly Supply Chain News Lab, across undergraduate, MBA and MS Business Analytics courses. I proposed Butler’s undergraduate Supply Chain major, helped build it, and lead faculty-led programs abroad.
I grew up in Uberlândia, Minas Gerais, built and ran a company for sixteen years, then turned the questions I had as an operator into research. I still bring both sides into every room.
Research returns to my classroom as teaching material the same year it is written.
New programs, new tools and a startup of my own: I build things, then I measure whether they work.
Connecting students and research to the firms, clusters and investors that run Indiana’s supply chains.
Consulting, a keynote, a research collaboration or a student project: email is the best way to start, and I answer personally.