| Course | OPS 330 Strategic Operations and Logistics (OPS/330) |
|---|---|
| Week | 2 |
| Paper type | ERP and process integration analysis |
| Length | about 1,044 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | BS in Business |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for OPS 330 Week 2
Three Spreadsheets and a Whiteboard: Making the Case for Enterprise Resource Planning at a Build-to-Order Trailer Maker
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
OPS/330: Strategic Operations and Logistics
Week 2 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Red Dirt Trailer Works, its systems, costs and figures are composites written for a model paper.
Red Dirt Trailer Works, the made-up Ada, Oklahoma, trailer builder from Week 1, builds about 22 custom aluminum trailers a week. Its process analysis found welding to be the bottleneck and showed that delivery quotes ignore the order backlog. Behind both problems is information: no single place shows what has been ordered, what material is needed, what is in progress and when trailers will be finished. This paper evaluates whether an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system would help and how the company should approach one.
How Information Flows Today
Follow one order. A dealer emails a specification for a 24-foot stock trailer with a tack room and two dividers. The sales coordinator retypes it into an order spreadsheet and prices it from a separate price list. An engineer opens a computer-aided design template, modifies it and prints a cut list by hand. The buyer checks a whiteboard of aluminum stock and a supplier spreadsheet before ordering extrusions. The production manager decides the weekly schedule on another whiteboard. When the trailer ships, the office manager enters the invoice into the accounting package. Five tools hold parts of the truth, and none talks to the others.
What Fragmentation Costs
The owners' records over six months show the cost. About 9 percent of cut lists contained errors, causing rework or scrap at welding, the bottleneck. Aluminum was rush-ordered 23 times at premium freight, about $41,000 in extra cost. The month-end physical count of aluminum differed from the spreadsheet by an average of 11 percent. And dealers calling for order status were often told to wait while staff walked the floor to find their trailer.
What Integration Would Change
An ERP system holds one database shared by sales, engineering, purchasing, production, inventory and accounting. For Red Dirt, five functions matter most.
Configured orders: a configurable bill of materials lists every option, so a dealer's selections automatically generate the trailer's parts list and cut list, removing manual retyping.
Material planning: material requirements planning uses the schedule and the bills of materials to calculate aluminum needs by week, so the buyer orders on time instead of in a rush.
Scheduling at the bottleneck: orders are released to cutting at the rate welding can absorb, and the system shows the real queue, so quotes reflect it.
Inventory accuracy: material is issued to orders and received against purchase orders, so the system knows what is on hand.
Financial integration: invoicing and costing flow from the order, so the owners can see the actual cost of each configuration.
Most of the errors at welding were born at a keyboard in the front office.
What Research Says About Benefits
Hitt et al. (2002) studied firms that adopted ERP and found that adopters generally showed higher productivity and financial performance than non-adopters, though performance often dipped during implementation before gains appeared. Olhager and Selldin (2003) surveyed manufacturing firms using ERP and found that companies reported benefits such as better information availability and integration, with improvements in areas such as inventory and delivery performance, while many also reported implementation difficulties and costs above expectations. For a company of Red Dirt's size, these findings suggest real but not automatic gains, with a temporary dip to plan for.
What Makes Implementations Fail
Umble et al. (2003) studied how companies put these systems in place and concluded that success rested less on the software than on the organization: knowing why the system is being bought, owners who stay involved, careful management of the project and of the people whose jobs change, accurate data, thorough training and a few clear measures of results. Their list warns Red Dirt against treating ERP as an IT purchase: data accuracy alone, starting with clean bills of materials for every option, will take months.
How Jobs Will Change
An integrated system changes daily work as much as it changes data. The sales coordinator will configure orders in the system with the dealer on the phone instead of retyping emails, and will see the real delivery date before quoting it. The engineer will maintain option rules in the configurable bill of materials rather than editing a drawing for every order, which shifts her work from repetition to improvement. The buyer will review planned purchase orders suggested by the system each morning instead of walking to the whiteboard. Welders will receive kitted parts with a printed build sheet generated from the order. These changes need to be explained early and practiced, because people who feel the system was imposed on them tend to keep side spreadsheets, which quietly break the integration.
Selection Criteria
The company drew up six criteria: strong support for configure-to-order manufacturing; fit for a single plant of about 140 people; cloud hosting, since there is no IT department; an integrated accounting module; a vendor with trailer or similar fabrication customers; and a total five-year cost below about $450,000, including licenses, implementation services and training.
Implementation Plan
Phase 1, months 1 to 4: clean and build configurable bills of materials for the 12 most common trailer models, which cover about 80 percent of orders; set up inventory and purchasing.
Phase 2, months 5 to 7: go live with order entry, material planning and scheduling, running the old spreadsheets in parallel for one month.
Phase 3, months 8 to 10: connect accounting and costing, retire spreadsheets and add the remaining models.
A small team, the operations manager, the lead engineer, the buyer and an office lead, works with the vendor, and every user is trained before go-live. The plan avoids going live in the spring peak.
Measures of Success
The company will track cut list errors, rush material orders, inventory count accuracy, quote accuracy against actual delivery and staff time spent answering status calls, comparing each with the six-month baseline above.
Conclusion
Red Dirt's fragmented tools cause errors at its bottleneck, rush orders, inaccurate inventory and quotes that dealers cannot trust. An ERP system with configurable bills of materials, material planning and bottleneck-paced scheduling addresses each. Research promises benefits but warns of difficult implementations, so a phased plan built around clean data, a committed team, training and clear measures gives the company the best chance of realizing them.
References
Hitt, L. M., Wu, D. J., & Zhou, X. (2002). Investment in enterprise resource planning: Business impact and productivity measures. Journal of Management Information Systems, 19(1), 71-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2002.11045716
Olhager, J., & Selldin, E. (2003). Enterprise resource planning survey of Swedish manufacturing firms. European Journal of Operational Research, 146(2), 365-373. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-2217(02)00555-6
Umble, E. J., Haft, R. R., & Umble, M. M. (2003). Enterprise resource planning: Implementation procedures and critical success factors. European Journal of Operational Research, 146(2), 241-257. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-2217(02)00547-7
What the OPS 330 Week 2 instructions ask
The second OPS 330 assignment typically asks students to explain enterprise resource planning and how it integrates business processes, often applied to a specific organization. Prompts may ask students to describe current information flows and problems, identify the ERP modules or functions that would help, such as order management, bills of materials, material requirements planning, production scheduling, purchasing, inventory and financials, discuss benefits and risks and outline selection or implementation steps. Use a real or realistic company, describe how information moves today, tie each function to a business problem and support the discussion with operations and information systems research, cited in APA.
How this OPS 330 Week 2 example is built
The model paper starts by following one custom horse trailer order through the company's disconnected tools: a dealer's emailed specification retyped into a spreadsheet, a cut list built by hand, aluminum ordered by a buyer who checks a whiteboard and an invoice entered separately into accounting. It counts the cost of that fragmentation: wrong cut lists, rushed material orders and a month-end inventory count that never matches. It then shows how an integrated system would carry a configured order through bills of materials, material planning, the welding schedule and invoicing. Research on implementation success and failure informs a short list of selection criteria and a phased implementation plan focused on the bottleneck from Week 1.
OPS 330 Week 2 grading rubric: where the points go
Grading here rewards a clear tie between business problems and system functions. Strong papers describe current information flows concretely, show where they fail with evidence and explain how specific ERP functions would fix those failures. Instructors credit an honest view of costs, risks and implementation challenges supported by research, along with sensible selection criteria and a realistic implementation plan. Linking the ERP case to the company's operations strategy and to the process analysis from earlier work shows integration. Graders also look for a plan to measure whether the system paid off, since owners will ask. Specific examples, a logical order and tidy APA citations earn the remaining points.
OPS 330 Week 2 help: mistakes to avoid
ERP papers frequently list modules from a vendor brochure without connecting them to the company's problems. For each function, name the problem it solves. Another frequent gap is treating ERP as a software purchase rather than a change in processes and jobs; implementation research shows the people side often decides success. Students also skip costs and risks, which a business owner will ask about first. Include them. Some papers ignore the company's specific way of working, such as build-to-order with heavy customization, which shapes the system requirements. Finally, propose a phased plan rather than one big switch, and avoid going live in your busiest season. A tutor can help you map current information flows if the picture is unclear.
Related OPS 330 sample papers
Other OPS 330 week samples
- OPS 330 Week 1: Operations Strategy and Process
- OPS 330 Week 3: Inventory and Supply Chain Control
- OPS 330 Week 4: Forecasting and Optimization
- OPS 330 Week 5: Quality and Continuous Improvement
More BS in Business sample papers
- MKT 449 Week 2: Analyzing Market Penetration
- MKT 498 Week 2: Advertising Message Strategy
- PM 300 Week 2: Applying the Principles
- PM 310 Week 2: Building and Leading the Team
OPS 330 Week 2 questions, answered
What does OPS 330 Week 2 usually cover?
It usually covers enterprise resource planning: how ERP integrates sales, planning, production, purchasing, inventory and accounting, its benefits and risks and how a company would select and implement a system.
Where can I find a free OPS 330 Week 2 sample paper?
The Week 2 paper above makes the case for ERP at a build-to-order trailer maker and outlines selection and implementation; it is free to read.
What is material requirements planning?
A method, usually part of an ERP system, that uses the production schedule, bills of materials and inventory records to calculate what materials are needed and when to order them.
Why do ERP implementations fail?
Common reasons include unclear goals, poor data, too much customization, weak top management support, inadequate training and underestimating the process changes involved.
What is a configurable bill of materials?
A bill of materials that lists all possible options for a product, so that a system can generate the specific parts list for each customer's chosen configuration.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official University of Phoenix document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
Request this one custom, free · All OPS 330 week samples · All courses