| Course | MT498 Bachelor's Capstone in Supply Chain Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Project scope proposal |
| 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 MT498 Unit 2
One Company, One Eastern Flow, Two Measures: An MT498 Unit 2 Project Scope Proposal for Lowry Filter Company
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT498: Bachelor's Capstone in Supply Chain Management
Unit 2 Project Scope Proposal
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Lowry Filter Company, its sponsor and every figure are composite; the sources cited are real.
Organization and Sponsor
Lowry Filter Company makes pleated air filters for home furnaces and commercial heating and cooling systems at a single plant in Salina, Kansas. It ships about 650,000 cases a year to home-center chains and to heating and cooling distributors. Lowry's operations vice president sponsors the project, releasing the data and reading each deliverable as it is finished. Standard filter media comes by truck from a mill in Hickory, North Carolina; premium media for the company's higher-efficiency line is imported in ocean containers through Baltimore.
Why the East and Not the Whole Network
Eastern accounts, those east of the Mississippi, take 396,000 of the 650,000 cases and most of the outbound freight bill, because every eastern case rides a trailer about 850 miles from Salina to a leased warehouse in Columbus, Ohio, before final delivery. Narrowing the project to that flow keeps the model small enough to finish in eight units while still covering most of the money at stake. Simchi-Levi et al. (2008) recommend that network studies begin by aggregating demand into the regions that drive cost, and the eastern flow is that region here.
Boundary
Nine nodes and their connecting lanes sit inside the boundary: the Hickory media mill, the Baltimore port for premium media, the Salina plant's media storage, pleating lines and finished-goods staging for eastern volume, the Columbus warehouse, and three groups of eastern customers, the five home-center distribution centers, heating and cooling distributors, and a small group of direct commercial accounts.
Four things sit outside, each for a reason. Western customers are excluded because their freight is short and their service is already strong. Filter design is excluded because the product line is fixed for this project. The choice of overseas supplier for premium media is excluded because it is a sourcing decision rather than a network one; every option will inherit today's supplier and price. And the company's plans for a new product family are excluded because they have no volumes yet.
Every exclusion carries a reason, so no later option can quietly reopen it.
Measures
Two measures will judge every option. The first is landed cost per eastern case, which adds purchase, conversion, freight, duty, storage, carrying cost, stranded overhead and the cost of stockouts; a preliminary reading of last year's invoices puts it a little above $32. Its data come from freight invoices, the Columbus warehouse's monthly bills and the plant's cost reports, all held by the controller. The second is eastern fill rate, the share of ordered cases shipped complete and on time, which stood at 93.1 percent over the past twelve months according to the vendor portal of the largest home-center account, maintained by the customer service manager. Both measures name who produces the number, so anyone can rebuild the baseline later.
Why Landed Cost Rather Than Freight Alone
The sponsor's first instinct was to measure freight per case, since freight is the cost that has risen fastest. Freight alone would mislead. A design that cut freight by moving production could raise labor cost, leave overhead stranded at Salina or change how much inventory the network holds, and a freight-only measure would miss all three. Ellram (1995) describes total cost of ownership as counting every cost a purchase or decision sets in motion, not only the price on the invoice, and landed cost per case applies the same idea to a network. Pairing it with fill rate keeps the project from saving money by letting service slip, which the largest home-center account would notice within a month.
Data
Four sources are promised: twelve months of outbound and inbound freight invoices, the Columbus warehouse's monthly billing, the plant's production and conversion cost records, and fill-rate reports from the largest account's vendor portal. The schedule below lists who supplies each source and by which unit.
Constraints
Three constraints are stated as figures where possible, since Chopra and Meindl (2016) treat capital and capacity limits as the first filter on any network design. Capital for any option must stay below $2 million. The product line does not change. And effects on Salina staffing are reported in each option but not decided by the project, since those choices belong to the company.
Risks to the Project
The largest risk is that freight bills arrive incomplete, especially for expedited shipments paid by credit card. The controller has agreed to pull those separately. A second risk is that the portal's fill-rate definition differs from the company's own; both will be reported until they are reconciled.
Schedule
Unit 3 delivers the current-state network map, using the freight and warehouse data. Unit 4 states the problem as a number with a target. Unit 5 compares alternatives against a do-nothing baseline. Unit 7 builds the total landed cost model, Unit 8 the risk assessment and Unit 9 the phasing plan. Unit 10 brings the cost case, the service effect and the recommendation together in one report.
References
Chopra, S., & Meindl, P. (2016). Supply chain management: Strategy, planning, and operation (6th ed.). Pearson.
Ellram, L. M. (1995). Total cost of ownership: An analysis approach for purchasing. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 25(8), 4-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/09600039510099928
Simchi-Levi, D., Kaminsky, P., & Simchi-Levi, E. (2008). Designing and managing the supply chain: Concepts, strategies, and case studies (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
MT498 Unit 2 instructions, in plain terms
In the second unit of MT498, the proposal picks one organization and the part of its network worth redesigning. Introduce the company and the sponsor who will provide data. Explain why you chose the flow you did, usually because it carries most of the cost or the worst service. Draw the boundary precisely, listing what is inside and what is outside with a reason for each exclusion. Name two or three measures that will judge the work, each with its data source and owner. List the data you have been promised, state constraints as figures where possible, and note the risks to the project itself. A schedule tying each later deliverable to its unit and its data closes the proposal. Avoid naming the redesign yet; that comes after analysis.
How the MT 498 Unit 2 example is put together
Lowry's proposal introduces the plant, its two media sources and the operations vice president who sponsors the work. A section explains why the eastern flow carries most of the freight, citing Simchi-Levi and colleagues on aggregating demand by region. The boundary lists nine inside nodes and four exclusions with reasons, under a highlighted line that every exclusion carries one. A section argues for landed cost over freight alone, citing Ellram on total cost of ownership. The measures name their owners, the controller and the customer service manager. Data, constraints with Chopra and Meindl on capacity limits, project risks such as incomplete freight bills, and a unit by unit schedule complete the document, with every deliverable matched to its data.
Reading the MT498 Unit 2 grading rubric
The boundary decides most of the grade. A proposal that promises to optimize the whole supply chain has chosen nothing, and instructors usually say so in their first comment. Credit goes to a boundary a reader could draw, with reasons attached to each exclusion. Measures should follow from the boundary, so nothing is measured that the project cannot change, and each needs a named source. Feasibility counts: promised data with owners and dates reads as a project that will finish. Constraints stated as figures, such as a capital ceiling, keep later options realistic. Risks to the project itself, not only to the supply chain, show planning maturity. APA citations for any concept used finish the professional standard expected at this stage.
MT498 Unit 2 help from the desk
Proposals frequently choose a scope too large to model, such as every product in every region, and then run out of time in Unit 7. Another weak pattern lists the boundary without saying why anything was excluded, which invites later units to drift. Measures are often vague, such as efficiency or customer satisfaction, with no data source. Students sometimes name the solution in the proposal, which shapes every analysis that follows. Data is often assumed rather than promised. Before submitting, sketch your boundary on one page and check that a classmate could redraw it from your text, attach an owner to every measure, and confirm that the capital or staffing limits are written as numbers rather than adjectives.
Get an MT498 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Say which organization the project will study and how much of its data is within reach, then add the Unit 2 proposal instructions with their rubric. The composite scope proposal we send back has a drawn boundary, reasons for each exclusion and two measured baselines. There is no charge for a first custom sample, typically delivered in 24-48h. 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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MT498 Unit 2 questions, answered
Can the organization be one I do not work for?
Yes, in most sections, provided enough data exists to build the model. Students without an employer to study often use a composite company, building its figures from public sources and saying so plainly in the proposal. Instructors generally care that the boundary and measures are sound and traceable, not that the company named on the cover is real.
How narrow should the boundary be?
Narrow enough to cost completely in the units remaining. One flow, one region or one product family is typical. A boundary covering an entire company usually forces shortcuts later, and the landed cost model suffers first. If a reviewer could not list each node and lane inside your boundary from the diagram alone, it is probably still too wide.
Should the proposal already name the redesign?
Usually not. The scope proposal identifies the part of the network worth studying and the measures that will judge any change; the alternatives come later, after the current state is mapped. A proposal that announces its answer invites the grader to ask why the analysis is needed. Naming a suspected problem area, as this sample does with eastern freight, is fine.
Where can I find a free MT498 Unit 2 sample paper?
The complete MT498 Unit 2 proposal is on this page, scoping a composite filter maker's eastern flow with a drawn boundary, two measures and a schedule.
Why does the MT498 Unit 2 sample measure landed cost instead of freight?
Freight alone would miss higher labor at a new site, overhead left behind and inventory changes, so a redesign could look cheaper than it is.