When Girl Scout cookie time rolls around this spring, things are going to be a little different. The group is usually successful when selling their cookies, but this year the results should be record-breaking.

Two area Girl Scout councils enlisted the help of Smeal College of Business MBA students to help them reconfigure the logistics of cookie distribution.

The two councils contacted the Center for Logistics Research, a part of the Smeal College of Business Administration, in hopes of attaining an assessment of the current expenses involved in cookie distribution as the cookies travel from the manufacturer to their final destinations in people's pantries.

Six students from Business Logistics 596 (Individual Studies) undertook the project, along with two recent Penn State Business Logistics graduates, Ron Eichelberger and Brian Damiani, of Tranzact Logistics. The two donated their time to help with the task.

"The Girl Scout organization is divided nationally into councils," said Paul H. Dowler (graduate-business administration), who was a member of the student team. "Two councils whose regions are here in central Pennsylvania are merging their leadership, and wanted to look at their current relationship with the transportation systems and the actual distribution of the cookies themselves. At the project's completion, we submitted our findings to the head of the two organizations, Randy Kline."

The MBA students looked at the current cost of distribution and developed ways the councils can maximize their profits while keeping costs to a minimum.

These proposals were presented to Kline, executive director of the Penn Laurel and Hemlock Girl Scout Councils of central and southern Pennsylvania, at the end of the semester, said Dowler.

The student group evaluated past distribution information to best determine how the Girl Scouts can maximize its profits.

"Logistic is all about getting the right thing to the right place at the right time," said William Grenoble, director of the Center for Logistics Research. "The students analyzed the structure and transportation system (of the cookies) to see how they could better be moved."

The Hemlock council began cookie sales Jan. 5, having implemented the new procedures set forth in the proposal designed by the MBA students.

The Penn Laurel council serves seven counties in southern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland, and the Hemlock council serves 15 counties in north central Pennsylvania. The two councils consist of about 41,000 members, who sold about 170,000 cases of cookies last year, at 12 boxes per case.