MT236 Unit 2 Supply Chain Map Example

Reviewed by Chester Goodwin, MBA Introduction to Supply Chain Management Purdue University Global Free custom sample in 24 to 48h

The MT236 Unit 2 supply chain map on this page follows one five-ounce bottle of a composite San Antonio maker's green sauce through eleven organizations and about seven months, from an August jalapeno harvest in Chihuahua to a grocery shelf at the end of April. Purdue Global MT 236 asks for a chain map in Unit 2, and the sample draws tiers from growers and a mash processor through glass, cap, label and vinegar suppliers to the bottling line, a carrier, a distribution center and about 140 stores. At each node it records inventory, owner and days held, and it finds about two hundred days of waiting against roughly three days of work. Information and money flows, extended partners and three problems for later units close the map. Chopra and Meindl, Mentzer and colleagues and Lee and colleagues support it for the BS in Business Administration.

CourseMT236 Introduction to Supply Chain Management
UnitUnit 2
Paper typeSupply chain map
LengthAbout 900 words, 6 pages double-spaced
FormatAPA 7 student paper
SchoolPurdue University Global
ProgramBS in Business Administration
UpdatedOctober 2026

Free sample paper for MT236 Unit 2

1

Seven Months From Chihuahua to the Shelf: A Unit 2 Supply Chain Map for One Bottle of Green Sauce

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT236: Introduction to Supply Chain Management

Unit 2 Supply Chain Map

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Alamo Ridge Pepper Co., its eleven partners and every time and quantity are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where the company's records would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.

What this part is doingSaying that the pepper mostly sits still tells the reader the map will focus on inventory, not just movement.
2

How the Map Is Drawn

The map runs left to right in tiers. Solid arrows carry goods, dashed arrows carry orders and shipping notices, and dotted arrows carry payments. A small box at each node records how much inventory sits there for this product, who owns it and how many days it stays. Chopra and Meindl (2019) describe the main drivers of supply chain performance as facilities, inventory, transportation, information, sourcing and pricing, and the map is built to show the first four at once.

Tier Two Suppliers

Pepper growers in Chihuahua harvest jalapenos from roughly July to September. A mash processor near Delicias grinds the peppers with salt and ferments the mash in sealed drums. The mash stays there, owned by the processor, for about [three to four] months until Alamo Ridge calls for it.

Tier One Suppliers

The mash processor ships drums by truck across the border to San Antonio, about [four] days door to door including customs. Alamo Ridge holds the mash in its own cooler for up to [three] more months, owned by Alamo Ridge from the border crossing.

A glass plant near Monterrey makes the five-ounce bottle on a furnace schedule about every five weeks. Bottles wait in the plant's warehouse, owned by the plant, until shipped, then in Alamo Ridge's warehouse for about [four] weeks. Caps come from a molder in Illinois, about [six] weeks of stock on hand. Labels come from a printer in Austin, two weeks of stock. Vinegar comes from a supplier in Houston in weekly deliveries.

The Focal Company

The San Antonio line bottles about [2,000] cases a month of all flavors, running green jalapeno about one week in four. Finished cases wait in the company's warehouse about [three] weeks before shipping.

Tier One Customers

A truckload carrier picks up from San Antonio and delivers to the grocery chain's distribution center in about one day. The chain owns the cases from that point. They sit in its distribution center about [two] weeks, then ride the chain's own trucks to about 140 stores, where they sit on shelves and in backrooms about [three] more weeks before a shopper buys a bottle.

What this part is doingRecording ownership at each node shows who pays to carry the inventory at every step.
3

Adding Up the Time

Following one bottle of green sauce, the pepper is harvested in August, ferments until about December, sits in Alamo Ridge's cooler until about February, is bottled in late February, waits in the company's warehouse until mid-March, spends two weeks in the chain's distribution center and three weeks in a store. The bottle leaves the shelf around the end of April. That is about seven months for a product whose total processing time, harvesting, grinding, bottling and shipping, adds up to a few days.

For roughly two hundred days the pepper is waiting, and for about three it is being worked on.

Most of the waiting is deliberate. Fermentation takes months and gives the sauce its flavor, and with only one picking season, the drums have to carry the company through to the following year. Other waits are not deliberate. Bottles wait about four weeks because the glass plant's five-week schedule forces large orders. Finished cases wait three weeks because the line runs each flavor only once a month.

Information Flows

Orders travel upstream slowly. The grocery chain sends a purchase order weekly. Alamo Ridge orders bottles monthly, caps quarterly and mash once a year for most of its volume. No partner shares point-of-sale data with the others, so each link plans from the orders it receives, not from what shoppers actually buy. Lee et al. (1997) showed that this pattern lets small changes in consumer demand grow into large swings in orders further up the chain, a problem a later unit will measure.

Money Flows

Money moves the other way on different clocks. The grocery chain pays in 45 days, the glass plant expects payment in 30, and the mash processor wants half its payment at harvest and half on delivery. Alamo Ridge therefore pays for its pepper about eight months before the matching bottles are paid for, which is why the company's credit line is busiest every fall.

Who Is Not on the Map

Mentzer et al. (2001) distinguish a firm's direct supply chain from its extended chain, which includes suppliers' suppliers and customers' customers. Several extended partners matter here even though Alamo Ridge never deals with them: the soda ash and sand suppliers that feed the Monterrey glass furnace, the customs brokers on both sides of the border, and the shoppers whose purchases drive everything. A drought that cuts the Chihuahua harvest or a furnace repair at the glass plant would reach Alamo Ridge within weeks, even though neither appears in its purchasing records.

What this part is doingNaming the extended partners the company never sees prepares the risk discussion in Unit 9.
4

What the Map Suggests

Three points stand out for later units. The glass bottle's long, lumpy supply is the main avoidable inventory. The absence of shared sales data means every link guesses. And the pepper harvest is a once-a-year source that the whole chain depends on.

5

References

Chopra, S., & Meindl, P. (2019). Supply chain management: Strategy, planning, and operation (7th ed.). Pearson.

Lee, H. L., Padmanabhan, V., & Whang, S. (1997). Information distortion in a supply chain: The bullwhip effect. Management Science, 43(4), 546-558. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.43.4.546

Mentzer, J. T., DeWitt, W., Keebler, J. S., Min, S., Nix, N. W., Smith, C. D., & Zacharia, Z. G. (2001). Defining supply chain management. Journal of Business Logistics, 22(2), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2158-1592.2001.tb00001.x

What the MT236 Unit 2 assignment asks for

Unit 2 in MT 236 usually asks for a map of one product's supply chain from raw material to final customer, with an explanation. Draw tiers from left to right and use different arrows for goods, orders and payments. At each node, note how much inventory sits there, who owns it and for how long, since that is where cost and risk hide. Go as far upstream as published sources or the company's records allow; many maps stop at tier two. A drawing tool, a slide or a neat spreadsheet grid usually satisfies the format. The written part should add up the time a unit spends in the chain, separate necessary waits from avoidable ones and note who is missing from the map. End with the problems later units should take up. Expect a one-page map plus about four pages of explanation, citing the course text in APA 7.

How the MT 236 Unit 2 example is put together

The explanation starts with the map's notation and Chopra and Meindl's performance drivers. Tier two covers the growers and the mash processor, with three to four months of fermentation. Tier one covers mash crossing the border, bottles on a five-week furnace cycle, caps, labels and vinegar, each with stock held. The bottling line, the carrier, the chain's distribution center and its stores follow, and a margin note explains why ownership is recorded at every node. A timeline adds up the bottle's seven months, and the highlighted line compares waiting with working. Necessary and avoidable waits are separated. Information flows show no partner sharing shopper data, citing Lee and colleagues; money flows show pepper paid for eight months ahead. Mentzer and colleagues' extended chain adds unseen partners, with a second note, and three problems close the map.

Reading the MT236 Unit 2 grading rubric

Supply chain maps are typically scored on completeness, accuracy and what the explanation draws out. Tiers should run in order with clear arrows for each flow. Recording inventory, ownership and time at each node turns a diagram into analysis, and graders reward that more than a list of partners. Adding up the time a unit spends in the chain, and separating necessary from avoidable waiting, shows insight. Noting information and money flows, not just goods, earns credit. Including partners beyond the direct chain shows awareness of hidden risk. The explanation should end with problems that later units can examine. Figures should be labeled as estimates where needed. The Chopra and Meindl text, the Mentzer article and the Lee bullwhip paper should be cited.

Common MT236 Unit 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them

Maps often go wrong by drawing only the company and its direct customer, with no suppliers' suppliers. Another common issue is arrows without labels, so readers cannot tell goods from orders. Some maps show partners but no inventory or time, which hides the main findings. Others mix tiers, placing a cap molder and a grocery store in the same column. The explanation sometimes describes each box without adding anything the drawing does not show. Money flows are often left out entirely. If the company's records are private, industry reports and supplier websites can fill in typical lead times, labeled as estimates. Tell us the product you want to trace, and a writer can help build the tiers and add up where the time goes.

Get an MT236 Unit 2 example written to your instructions

Tell us which product to trace, ideally one whose origins are publicly documented, and send the Unit 2 prompt with its rubric. Tiers, three flows and dated inventory points come back drawn and explained in 24-48h, and the first custom sample is free. Where public information runs out, the map shows a gap instead of an invented supplier. 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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MT236 Unit 2 questions, answered

How far upstream should the map go?

Usually to the raw material, or to the last tier published sources can identify, which for many products means two or three tiers. The example stops at the pepper growers because their harvest timing shapes everything downstream. If a tier cannot be identified, show it as a labeled box with a note on what is unknown rather than skipping it or inventing a supplier.

What is the difference between tier-one and tier-two suppliers?

Tier-one suppliers sell directly to the focal firm; tier-two suppliers sell to the tier-one suppliers. Here the mash processor is tier one and the growers who supply it are tier two. The distinction matters because a firm usually has contracts and visibility only at tier one, while many disruptions begin further back in the chain.

Can the map be drawn in a slide or spreadsheet?

Many sections accept any clear format: drawing software, a slide, a spreadsheet grid or a neat hand drawing scanned at good resolution. What matters is a legend for the line styles and symbols, and labels readable at normal size. A map that must be zoomed to read tends to lose presentation marks even when its content is sound.

Where can I find a free MT236 Unit 2 sample paper?

This page holds a full MT236 Unit 2 supply chain map for one bottle of hot sauce. It traces eleven organizations, records inventory, ownership and time at each node, adds up seven months of waiting and includes margin notes.

Which waits in the map are avoidable?

Fermentation and holding a year's mash are necessary. The four weeks of bottles caused by the glass plant's five-week schedule and the three weeks of finished stock caused by monthly flavor runs could be reduced.