| Course | MT237 Supply Chain Systems |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Supply chain map |
| Length | About 880 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT237 Unit 2
Sixteen Parties, Twenty-Two Data Exchanges, Nine Machine to Machine: A Unit 2 Two-Layer Supply Chain Map
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT237: Supply Chain Systems
Unit 2 Supply Chain Map
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Prairie Rise Desk Co., its partners and every count are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
The Physical Layer
The upper layer carries goods from left to right. Steel tube from a mill in Indiana goes to a frame fabricator in Tulsa, which welds and powder-coats the desk frames. Lift columns and control boxes come from a manufacturer in Penang, Malaysia, by ocean through a freight forwarder, an ocean carrier, a customs broker at the Port of Los Angeles and a rail and drayage leg to Kansas City. Desktop panels come from a plant in Arkansas, and shipping cartons from a box plant in Kansas City. All of it meets at Prairie Rise Desk Co.'s assembly and distribution building, which kits each desk into two cartons.
Finished desks leave through three channels: a parcel carrier for drop-ship orders placed on an office retailer's website, the same carrier for orders on Prairie Rise's own website, and less-than-truckload carriers for bulk orders to office furniture dealers. Counting suppliers, carriers, intermediaries, the retailer, dealers and the company itself, sixteen parties touch the chain.
The Data Layer
The lower layer shows the twenty-two regular exchanges of information among those parties, classified by how they travel. Nine run machine to machine: electronic purchase orders and ship notices with the office retailer through a translation service, tracking updates from the parcel carrier's system, payments through the bank and customs filings by the broker. Eight travel by email with attachments that someone opens and retypes, including the Penang supplier's shipment details, the forwarder's arrival notices and the Tulsa fabricator's invoices. Five travel by phone or by spreadsheet uploaded to a portal, including dealer orders and the carton plant's delivery schedule.
Chopra and Meindl (2019) note that information is the driver that ties the others together, since facilities, inventory and transportation decisions all depend on it. The map shows that Prairie Rise's information driver is weakest exactly where its goods travel farthest.
Sources for the Map
Three people supplied the facts. The purchasing manager listed every supplier, carrier and service provider the company paid in the last year. The operations coordinator spent two days noting every document that arrived or left, by email, portal, phone or system, and where it went next. And the information technology contractor who maintains the planning system confirmed which connections are automatic. Each exchange was then checked with the person who handles it, which added three exchanges the first list missed: the customs broker's duty statement, the bank's foreign exchange confirmation for the Penang payments and the dealers' monthly sales reports, which arrive as spreadsheets.
Who Owns Each Piece of Data
The map also marks whose system holds the master copy of each piece of information. The retailer owns order data until it sends a purchase order. Prairie Rise owns stock counts. The forwarder owns the container's location at sea, and the ocean carrier owns the vessel's schedule. Nobody owns a single record of when a given lift column will arrive at the dock; that date is pieced together from the supplier's email, the forwarder's notice and the carrier's schedule, and each source can disagree with the others by days.
Where People Retype
The eight email exchanges are the most costly. When the Penang supplier ships a container, it emails a packing list and invoice as attachments, and a Prairie Rise buyer types the quantities and expected arrival date into the planning system. The forwarder's arrival notice comes by email a few days before the ship docks, and the same buyer updates the date by hand. If either email is missed, the planning system shows the wrong arrival, and the warehouse plans labor for a container that is not there.
The Tulsa fabricator sends ship notices by email as well, so receiving checks frames against a printed copy. The carton plant uploads its delivery schedule to a portal once a week, and changes between uploads arrive by phone.
The longest physical leg in the chain is also the one reported by email.
Where Data Is Late Rather Than Wrong
Some machine-to-machine links are timely; others are not. Orders from the office retailer arrive electronically but in batches, so an order placed in the evening reaches Prairie Rise's system early the next morning. The daily stock file Prairie Rise sends to the retailer, which caused the oversold desk in Unit 1, is electronic but runs once a day. Lee and Whang (2000) argue that the value of shared information depends on how quickly it moves as well as whether it moves at all.
What the Map Suggests
Three points follow for later units. The Penang lift columns travel nine weeks with almost no electronic visibility, which later units will connect to safety stock. The daily stock file to the retailer is too slow for fast-moving items. And the eight retyped exchanges create errors that are hard to trace because they leave no automatic record. Christopher and Peck (2004) describe visibility across the chain as a basis for resilience, and the data layer shows where Prairie Rise has least of it.
References
Chopra, S., & Meindl, P. (2019). Supply chain management: Strategy, planning, and operation (7th ed.). Pearson.
Christopher, M., & Peck, H. (2004). Building the resilient supply chain. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 15(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/09574090410700275
Lee, H. L., & Whang, S. (2000). Information sharing in a supply chain. International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 1(1), 79-93. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJMTM.2000.001329
The Purdue Global MT237 Unit 2 instructions
Unit 2 in MT 237 asks for a supply chain map that shows systems as well as goods. A two-layer layout works well: physical flows on top, information flows below, with each exchange labeled by how it travels, such as electronic data interchange, email, a portal or a phone call. Name every party you can identify; where a party is unknown, use a placeholder that says so rather than inventing one. Count the exchanges and note which are automated, since that count is a finding in itself. The written part should explain where data is retyped, where it is late and who owns the master copy of key facts like arrival dates. Close by naming the weak links the next units will study. A single wide page for the map and roughly three pages of prose is usual, citing the course text and an information sharing source in APA 7.
How the MT 237 Unit 2 example is put together
The explanation describes the physical layer from raw steel and Penang columns to the three customer channels, counting sixteen parties. The data layer sorts twenty-two exchanges into nine electronic, eight emailed and five by phone or portal, and a margin note explains why sorting by channel shows where errors enter. Chopra and Meindl frame information as the driver that ties the others together. A sources section explains how the purchasing manager, coordinator and contractor supplied the facts and what checking added. A section on data ownership finds no single record of a column's arrival date. The retyping section follows the Penang emails into the planning system, and the highlighted line ties the longest leg to email. Lee and Whang support timeliness, and Christopher and Peck tie visibility to resilience in three closing problems, with a second note.
MT237 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
For this map, the deciding question is whether the data layer gets the same care as the trucks and containers. Each exchange should be labeled by channel, and graders reward a count of automated against manual exchanges because it turns a diagram into evidence. Explaining where data is retyped and where it is late shows understanding beyond drawing arrows. Identifying who owns key data, such as arrival dates, reveals gaps that later units can address. Unknown parties should be marked honestly. The closing problems should point to later units. Clear labels and a legend matter. The Chopra and Meindl text, the Lee and Whang article and Christopher and Peck should be cited in APA 7.
MT237 Unit 2 help: mistakes that cost points
Supply chain maps in MT 237 often fall short by drawing goods carefully and information as a single dashed line. Another frequent problem is labeling every exchange as electronic without checking, when many still travel by email. Some maps leave out service providers like forwarders and customs brokers, who hold important data. Others list exchanges without saying who retypes them or how late they arrive. Placeholders are sometimes replaced with invented names, which graders notice. Closing problems are often missing. If you can, ask someone who handles orders or receiving how each document actually arrives. Share the company and what you know of its partners, and we can help lay out both layers and count the exchanges.
Get an MT237 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Name the product whose chain needs mapping, or attach the case your Unit 2 prompt supplies, plus the rubric. Parties, goods and the data passing between them return drawn, labeled and explained within 24-48h, and that first custom sample is free. Where a supplier cannot be identified from public sources, the map says so openly. 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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MT237 Unit 2 questions, answered
Should a supply chain map show information as well as goods?
In MT237, yes. The course is about the systems that carry orders, confirmations and status alongside the goods, and a map with only physical flow leaves out what later units analyze. The example draws information on a separate layer so the goods stay readable, but a single diagram with clearly distinguished line styles is accepted in many sections.
What is EDI, and why label it on the map?
Electronic data interchange is the standard way businesses exchange documents such as purchase orders, ship notices and invoices computer to computer, in agreed formats. Labeling which links use it, and which rely on email or manual entry, shows where errors and delays are likely, since every retyped document is a chance for a wrong quantity or a late update.
How should a map handle parties that cannot be identified?
As placeholders that say plainly what is missing, never as a plausible invented company and never by leaving them out. The example's gray box behind the Penang supplier stands for motor and chip makers nobody outside that firm can name. That gap is itself a finding, because a firm cannot manage a dependency it cannot see, and later units return to it.
Where can I find a free MT237 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page holds a full MT237 Unit 2 two-layer supply chain map for a desk maker. It traces sixteen parties and twenty-two data exchanges, sorts them by channel, finds where people retype data and includes margin notes.
Which exchanges cause the most trouble in the sample?
The eight emailed ones, especially the Penang supplier's packing details and the forwarder's arrival notices, which a buyer retypes into the planning system; a missed email means the system shows the wrong arrival date.