Four network options for Petrie Rowing, from one Spokane site to three, costed for outbound parcel, inbound trailers, inventory and fixed cost in a composite MT434 Unit 4 analysis. Searches like "mt 434 unit 4 assignment example", "mt434 unit 4 sample" and "mt434 unit 4 example" land here.
What a finished MT434 Unit 4 distribution network analysis looks like
A demand table and one comparison table anchor about six pages. Consumer demand of 38,000 rowers a year is split across five regions: West 7,600, Mountain 3,100, Midwest 7,900, South 9,600 and Northeast 9,800. Each candidate site carries a parcel cost per rower to every region, $158 to $184 from Spokane into the three eastern regions against $92 to $112 from Indianapolis. Four configurations are compared: Spokane alone at $6,175,020 a year, Spokane with Indianapolis at $6,117,404, Spokane with Dallas at $6,478,794, and all three at $6,862,386. Beneath each total sit outbound parcel, inbound truckload at $33.10 a rower for stock moved east, inventory carrying cost and a fixed $640,000 per added site. A final row gives average business days to the customer.
How a MT434 Unit 4 example is structured
Regions are assigned before anything is totaled: each is served from whichever open site reaches it most cheaply once inbound freight is included, so Dallas never serves the Northeast even when it is open. Outbound and inbound costs are then summed separately, which lets the reader see that the second site's $1,879,800 outbound saving is largely consumed by $903,630 of trailers heading east. Inventory is handled with the square-root rule: safety stock rises from 2,300 rowers to about 3,253 when stock splits across two sites, plus 950 units of cycle stock at the new one, all carried at $146.40 a rower-year. Fixed cost follows. A service section converts assignments into average transit time. The recommendation weighs a near-zero cost difference against two days of speed and treats the third site as a case of diminishing returns.
Five regions, one table
Demand by region comes from last year's consumer orders, with the West and Mountain states together under 30 percent. That skew is why a western plant shipping everything by parcel pays long-zone rates on most of its volume.
Cheapest site after inbound
Every assignment counts the trailer that stocks a site as well as the parcel leaving it. Indianapolis wins the Midwest, South and Northeast, while Spokane keeps the West and Mountain regions in every configuration tested.
Inventory split two ways
Under the square-root rule, a second location adds about 953 rowers of buffer to the 2,300 Spokane holds today. Carrying cost rises from $336,720 to $615,274 a year, the line network answers most often leave out.
Two days for almost nothing
Spokane with Indianapolis costs $1.52 less per rower than Spokane alone and delivers in 2.36 business days rather than 4.34. The paper calls this the rare network change that buys speed without spending margin.
Why not Dallas too
A third site trims average transit by 0.15 of a day and adds $744,982 a year. Dallas in place of Indianapolis costs $361,390 more than the Indianapolis option and still delivers more slowly.
Where marks go in MT434 Unit 4
Network papers in MT434 are often marked down for adding a facility and counting only the delivery miles it saves. Here that shortcut would claim nearly $1.9 million of savings from Indianapolis, when inbound trailers, extra stock and fixed cost leave about $57,600. Inventory is the line most commonly missing, since stock sitting in two places needs more buffer than stock in one. Assignments that choose a site from a map without a cost table tend to lose accuracy credit, and those offering a center-of-gravity point but no candidate cities stop short of a decision. Readers also check whether transit time is reported, because speed is usually the reason to open a site at all. Stronger answers test more than two configurations and say where the returns stop.
Get a MT434 Unit 4 example written to your instructions
Your Unit 4 case probably lists demand points, candidate sites and some cost data; pass them along, prompt and rubric included. A composite network analysis comes back assigning each region, costing inbound freight and inventory alongside delivery, and reporting transit time for every option. The first one we write is free, ready in 24-48h.
MT434 Unit 4 questions, answered
What is the square-root rule, and should I use it?
It is a common approximation: buffer stock across a network scales with the square root of how many sites hold it, which puts a two-site network's buffer about 41 percent above a single site's. It suits a course-level network analysis when your case offers no inventory model of its own. Name it, state the starting stock, and note that it assumes demand splits roughly evenly.
Does the analysis need a center-of-gravity calculation?
Only if the prompt asks for one. A center of gravity locates a weighted midpoint of demand, which helps narrow a search, but it ignores inbound freight, real roads and facility cost. Many sections want candidate cities compared on total cost instead. If you include both, explain why they point to different places and which one your recommendation follows.
Is it acceptable to recommend the option that costs slightly more?
Yes, provided the paper states what the extra money buys. A network that costs more but delivers two days faster may be right for a business competing on speed. Put the cost difference and the service difference side by side, say which customers value the speed, and let the recommendation follow from that comparison rather than from preference.