MT299 Unit 10 Capstone Report Example

For the Owner, on One Lunch Break: A Unit 10 Capstone Report on Cutting Flower Waste at Hartwell Florist

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT299: Associate's Capstone in Management

Unit 10 Capstone Report

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Hartwell Florist, its people, records and every figure are composite and illustrative and draw on the earlier units' samples; the sources cited are real.

Executive Summary

Hartwell Florist throws away about 22 percent of the fresh-cut flowers it buys, about $28,000 a year at cost. Two causes explain most of it. The Thursday order has not changed in six years, though weekend counter customers have dropped by about a third since 2019, and the walk-in cooler runs at 38 to 39 degrees, several degrees warmer than recommended, which shortens every flower's life.

The report recommends two changes, which the owner has approved: a weekly par sheet that sets the Thursday order from recent sales plus a fixed reserve for sympathy work, and a $1,650 cooler repair with dated rotation of stock. Together they are expected to save about $12,290 a year in flowers, cost about $1,980 a year in staff time and fees, and return about $8,660 in the first year once the repair is paid for, then roughly $10,300 in each later year. Discards should fall to about 12 percent of purchases. A stop rule protects sympathy orders: if one is ever turned away, the old order size returns until the reserve is reviewed.

The Shop

Hartwell Florist is a second-generation family business in Kalamazoo with eight people, about $540,000 in annual sales, one delivery van and one walk-in cooler. Sympathy work is its largest line, about 31 percent of sales, and the one it can never refuse. Fresh flowers arrive from a regional wholesaler on Mondays and Thursdays.

The Problem

The problem statement, written in the fourth unit, still holds: roughly a fifth of what the shop spends on fresh stems ends in the compost bin, mainly because the Thursday order still expects counter shoppers who now order online. The measure, set before any results were known, is discarded cost divided by purchases each month, excluding the sympathy reserve.

What the Research Found

The findings are sorted by how far they can be trusted. Most reliable: a four-week discard log, checked against the compost bin, which confirmed the 22 percent figure and showed that about 60 percent of the loss came from Thursday stems, with roses and seasonal filler about half of it; and a year of invoices and sales reports showing the Thursday order unchanged for six years while walk-in sales fell. Reliable but limited: ten days of cooler readings at 38 to 39 degrees, against the 33 to 35 degrees the Society of American Florists recommends for most cut flowers (Society of American Florists, n.d.). Reliable for policy: the wholesaler's confirmation that the order can be changed weekly by Tuesday noon. Not found: an industry benchmark for discard rates in small florists, and the website's order-timing data.

The Options

Five options were screened on waste reduction, cost, staff hours, risk to sympathy work and reversibility: a par sheet, a cooler repair, Saturday market bunches, office subscriptions and doing nothing. Office subscriptions were set aside for lack of anyone to sell them. Market bunches were deferred, because their value depends on how many aging stems remain after the first two changes.

Costs, Benefits and Who Pays

The par sheet saves about $8,450 a year for about $1,040 in manager time and fees. The cooler repair costs $1,650 once and saves about $3,840 a year for about $940 in rotation labor, paying back in about seven months. The shop manager pays in an hour every Tuesday, designers in weekly bucket taping and the owner in the repair bill. The shop's purchases from its wholesaler will drop by roughly $12,300 a year, a change the owner has already raised with the representative.

The plan cuts waste in half by buying what sells and keeping it cold.

The Plan

The cooler repair comes first, on a Tuesday, the lightest delivery day. The discard log restarts the next week. After four weeks of sales data, the par sheet begins in week six, reviewed every Tuesday before the Thursday order is placed. Every task has one owner and a sign that it is done. The plan avoids Mother's Day and suspends the par sheet for the two weeks around it if needed.

Coursework in Use

Earlier courses shaped the work. Operations management supplied the idea of par levels and safety stock, which became the sympathy reserve (Heizer et al., 2020). Managerial accounting supplied the separation of one-time and recurring costs and the habit of ignoring costs the decision does not move (Garrison et al., 2021). Research methods supplied the design of the discard log and the rule of fixing the measure before collecting data (Saunders et al., 2019).

What the Owner Should Watch

Three numbers will tell the owner whether the plan is working. The weekly discard percentage, posted every Monday, should fall from about 22 percent toward 13 within the first two months. The cooler's recorded temperature should stay between 33 and 35 degrees; a reading above 36 for more than a day means the technician should return. And the order book should show no turned-away sympathy orders; if one appears, the stop rule applies at once. If the discard figure is still above 17 percent when the third monthly review comes around, the par sheet's targets should be reviewed with the shop manager before market bunches are considered.

What Comes Next

If the first two changes succeed, the shop can revisit the deferred options. Market bunches could recover some value from the stems still left over, once their effect on full-price sales has been tested for a month. Office subscriptions could return if the owner decides to grow corporate accounts. And the discard log, kept one week a month, gives the shop a permanent measure of waste it has never had.

Limitations

The report cannot say whether 22 percent is unusual for small florists, since no benchmark was found. The cooler readings cover only ten days in one season. And the savings estimates for the par sheet assume the next twelve months look like the last four weeks of sales; a shift in sympathy work or a new competitor would change them. The monthly review will show quickly whether the estimates hold.

Appendices

The appendices hold the blank discard log form, the first par sheet with its target quantities and sympathy reserve, the cost and benefit spreadsheet with its formulas and the source list. Every figure in this report matches the unit in which it was first calculated.

References

Garrison, R. H., Noreen, E. W., & Brewer, P. C. (2021). Managerial accounting (17th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Heizer, J., Render, B., & Munson, C. (2020). Operations management: Sustainability and supply chain management (13th ed.). Pearson.

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2019). Research methods for business students (8th ed.). Pearson.

Society of American Florists. (n.d.). Care and handling of cut flowers. https://safnow.org