| Course | MT140 Introduction to Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 9 |
| Paper type | Control measures report |
| Length | About 770 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT140 Unit 9
Closed Eyes and Crooked Heads: A Unit 9 Control Measures Report for a Portrait Lab
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT140: Introduction to Management
Unit 9 Control Measures Report
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Larkspur School Portraits, its lab, schools and every figure are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where the company's records would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.
The Problem
Larkspur's contracts promise schools that every portrait will meet "professional quality." Last fall, families at [31] of 210 schools complained about closed eyes, tilted heads or poor color in printed packages, and two school districts asked for a discount. Photographers said the images looked fine on site. Retouchers said they fixed what they saw. Nobody could prove either claim, because "professional quality" was never defined.
The complaints followed a pattern once they were sorted. Most involved a single photographer's schools in the same week, which suggests a lighting setup that went wrong and was repeated at every school that week. The lab saw the problem only after the packages printed, when the photographer was already three schools further along.
Standards
The first step of control is turning vague duties into observable standards. Five standards will apply to every printed portrait. Eyes must be fully open on both sides. The head must be within ten degrees of vertical. The face must fill between 45 and 55 percent of the frame height. Skin tone must fall within the lab's color target range on the calibration chart. No backdrop seams or stands may be visible.
These five came from sorting last fall's complaints. Closed eyes and tilted heads made up most of them, color made up most of the rest, and framing and visible equipment appeared only occasionally but drew the angriest responses.
Each standard can be checked by two people independently with the same result, which makes it usable.
Measurement
Inspecting every image is impossible at 6,000 a day. The lab will inspect a random sample of 40 images per school after retouching and before printing. Forty images is enough to detect a problem affecting about one image in twenty with high probability, and it takes one inspector about twelve minutes.
At 224 schools, the sampling plan needs about 45 hours of inspection across the season, about one inspector for a few hours each working day. That is affordable compared with the discounts last fall's complaints cost.
Comparison and Tolerances
A school passes if no more than one of the 40 sampled images fails any standard. Two failures mean the inspector checks another 40. Three or more failures mean the whole school's images go back for review before printing.
Corrective Action
Corrective action is scaled. A single failure is corrected in the image and logged. Two failures prompt a note to the photographer and retoucher. Three or more failures stop printing for that school and prompt a full review, plus a call from the field supervisor to the photographer the same day, since the cause is often a lighting setup that will repeat at the next school.
Every failure, whatever its size, will be logged by school, photographer and standard. Over a season, the log shows patterns no single inspection can, such as one photographer whose framing drifts late in long days, or one gym whose lighting fails the color standard every year and needs a different setup.
Feedforward, Concurrent and Feedback Controls
Control can act before, during or after the work (Robbins & Coulter, 2021). The sampling inspection is a feedback control, catching problems after the photo is taken. Two additions make the system stronger. As a feedforward control, every photographer will shoot the calibration chart at setup and send it to the lab before the first student, so lighting problems are caught before 600 photos repeat them. As a concurrent control, photographers will take a second frame whenever the first shows a blink, checked on the camera screen.
Ouchi (1979) argued that output control works best when outputs can be measured reliably, and these standards make the lab's output measurable for the first time. Deming (1986) warned that inspection alone cannot build quality into a product, because it finds defects after they exist. That is why the feedforward and concurrent controls matter more than the inspection: they prevent the problems the inspection would otherwise find.
Inspection tells us which school's photos failed; the calibration chart at setup stops the failure before the first child sits down.
Measure of Success
The target is fewer than [8] schools with quality complaints next fall, down from [31], and no school with three or more failures in the sample after October.
References
Deming, W. E. (1986). Out of the crisis. MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study.
Ouchi, W. G. (1979). A conceptual framework for the design of organizational control mechanisms. Management Science, 25(9), 833-848. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.25.9.833
Robbins, S. P., & Coulter, M. (2021). Management (15th ed.). Pearson.
What the MT140 Unit 9 assignment asks for
In Unit 9 the task is a control plan for one process or department, usually delivered as a short report. The prompt generally follows the control process in the course text: set standards, measure performance, compare results with the standards, and take corrective action. Standards must be measurable, which means two people checking separately would reach the same verdict. You then explain how and how often performance will be measured, what tolerance counts as acceptable, and what happens when a result falls short. Most sections also expect feedforward, concurrent and feedback controls to be identified, ideally as parts of your plan rather than as definitions. A measure of the system's own success closes the report. Expect about three pages with a table or two, citing the textbook and at least one other credible source in APA 7. A workplace you know works well.
Inside the MT140 Unit 9 example
The report starts with the complaint pattern and adds that most complaints clustered around one photographer's schools in the same week, so the reader sees why a single setup error spread. A standards section turns the contract's vague promise into five checks drawn from sorting last fall's complaints. Measurement explains why the lab cannot inspect 6,000 images a day and instead samples forty per school, about 45 hours across the season. Tolerances set three steps, and corrective action scales from fixing one image to stopping a school's print run with a call from the field supervisor. A logging rule shows how patterns, such as one gym's lighting, appear over a season. The control types section labels the inspection as feedback and adds a calibration chart and on-site checks. Deming's warning about inspection leads to the highlighted line, and the target is fewer than eight complaint schools.
Where the points sit in the MT140 Unit 9 rubric
Most of the marks in a control report go to the standards and the corrective action. Standards that two people would judge the same way score far higher than ones that use words such as good or acceptable, which is why each standard here names a measurement or a visible condition. The measurement plan should be realistic, so the sample size and inspection hours give the grader something to check. Tolerances and corrective steps earn credit when they are scaled to the size of the miss and name who acts. Applying feedforward, concurrent and feedback controls within the plan shows understanding that a list of definitions cannot. The report also needs a measure of its own success. Clear headings, a professional tone and APA 7 citations for Ouchi, Deming and the course text complete the grading picture.
MT140 Unit 9 help from the desk
Control reports are most often marked down for standards that cannot be measured, such as high quality or prompt service. Another problem is a measurement plan that inspects everything, which a manager would reject as impossible. Some reports describe a single response to every miss, often discipline, instead of scaling it. Others name the three control types in a separate paragraph and never connect them to the process. Look out for a report with no target, since a control system without a goal cannot show it worked. If your process is hard to measure, start from complaints or rework and ask what someone would have to look at to spot each one. Our writers can turn your process into measurable standards, a sampling plan with tolerances and a scaled corrective ladder, cited to the control readings your section uses.
Get an MT140 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Name the process or service being controlled and its current standard, even if that is only an expectation nobody wrote down, and attach the Unit 9 prompt and rubric. Standards, the control table and tiered responses are built around it and returned in 24-48h. A first custom sample costs nothing. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT140 Unit 9 questions, answered
What makes a standard measurable?
Two people checking independently would reach the same verdict. That usually means a count, a threshold, a time, or an observable condition such as no visible dust at desk height. If your draft standard contains a word like good, clean or timely, ask what someone would actually look at to decide, and write that instead.
Do I need to explain feedforward, concurrent and feedback controls?
Most Unit 9 prompts in introductory management expect them, but the strongest papers explain them through the plan rather than before it. Label each measure in your table with its control type and add a sentence on why that type fits. A grader then sees the concept applied, which earns more than three textbook definitions set side by side.
How detailed should corrective action be?
Detailed enough that a supervisor would know what to do on the night a result misses. Scale the response, since a single miss, a repeated miss and a persistent pattern each deserve a different action. Name who takes it and within what time. Avoid making discipline the first step, because graders usually read that as skipping the diagnosis.
Where can I find a free MT140 Unit 9 sample paper?
The full MT140 Unit 9 control measures report is on this page. It sets five measurable portrait standards, a forty-image sampling plan, tolerances and scaled corrective action for a composite portrait lab, with margin notes and three real sources.
Why does the sample inspect only forty images per school?
Because checking all 6,000 images a day is impossible. Forty images catch a problem affecting about one image in twenty with high probability, and the whole plan costs about 45 inspection hours a season, far less than last fall's discounts.