| Course | OPS 425 Project Management in Supply Chain Management (OPS/425) |
|---|---|
| Week | 3 |
| Paper type | Schedule and resource plan |
| Length | about 1,010 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 425 Week 3
Working Back From Valentine's Day: The Schedule and Resource Plan for a Bouquet Assembly Facility
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
OPS/425: Project Management in Supply Chain Management
Week 3 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Andes Bloom Imports, its activities, durations and resources are composites written for a model paper.
Andes Bloom Imports, the composite cut-flower importer near Miami International Airport studied in this course, has scoped its bouquet assembly facility. The grocery chain's branded bouquet line launches for Valentine's Day, the floral industry's largest week. Stores need bouquets in the week before February 14, so the facility must ship from about February 3 and finish trial production by mid-January. That date sets the schedule.
Working Backward
Working back from mid-January, with the project starting in mid-December of the previous year, gives about 13 months. The project manager, Lucía Herrera, and her team listed about 20 activities and estimated their durations with the people responsible, including partner organizations.
Key Activities and Durations
Sign lease and grocery supply agreement: 1 month.
Design facility layout and refrigeration: 2 months, after the lease.
County building and fire permits: 3 months, after design.
Utility upgrade of electrical service: 5 months from application, which can be filed after design.
Building fit-out, insulated panels and docks: 3 months, after permits.
Refrigeration installation: 2 months, after fit-out has begun and electrical service is ready.
Refrigeration commissioning and temperature mapping: 1 month.
Assembly line equipment order and installation: 4 months' lead time for equipment, then 1 month to install, after fit-out.
Production and labeling system integration: 4 months, in parallel, ending with testing.
Grocery chain packaging approval: 2 months, owned by the chain.
Farm stem volume agreements: 3 months, owned by Andes Bloom's sourcing director with farms.
Hiring and training: 3 months, ending before trials.
Trial production runs: 1 month, after commissioning, line installation, systems testing and hiring.
The Critical Path
Lease (month 1), design (months 2 to 3), the utility's service upgrade (months 4 to 8), refrigeration installation (months 9 to 10), commissioning and temperature mapping (month 11) and trial runs (month 12) form the longest chain, finishing about three weeks before mid-January. The utility upgrade is the single most important activity: it depends on an outside organization, and refrigeration cannot run without it. Other chains, such as fit-out and line installation, have four to six weeks of float.
Williams (2005) argued that project overruns often come from complex interactions and from conventional project management's assumption that plans can be decoupled into independent tasks; activities owned by outside parties are a common source of such interactions. The utility upgrade is that kind of activity.
The project's most important task is one Andes Bloom cannot perform: the power company's.
Partner Milestones
Three partner milestones are on the schedule with owners and dates: grocery chain packaging approval by month 6, owned by the chain's floral category manager; farm stem agreements by month 4, owned by Andes Bloom's sourcing director; and the carrier's revised delivery schedule by month 11, owned by the carrier's account manager. Each appears in the weekly status report alongside internal tasks.
Why the Utility Upgrade Takes So Long
The facility's refrigeration and lighting will draw about three times the electrical load the building was designed for. The utility must install a larger transformer and new service equipment, and transformers have had long lead times. The application must include final load calculations, which is why it cannot be filed until design is complete. Herrera assigned the facilities engineer to meet the utility's planner in month 3, before the formal application, to agree on the transformer size and get a place in the utility's installation queue early.
Seasonal Constraints on the Schedule
The project also competes with Andes Bloom's own seasons. Mother's Day in May and the autumn wedding season bring volume peaks at the existing coolers, when internal staff cannot be spared for project work. The schedule avoids placing internal testing or training in those weeks and concentrates them in July, August and late autumn.
The Resource Plan
Three resources are scarce. Electricians qualified for refrigeration controls are in demand in South Florida; the general contractor has committed a crew of six for months 8 through 11. Herrera's team of four internal staff is stretched across permits, systems and hiring; a hiring coordinator joins in month 7. And floral assembly workers must be hired and trained: the plan ramps from 20 workers in month 10, for equipment testing, to 80 in month 11 and 140 for trial production in month 12, with training on bunching standards, cold-room safety and food-grade hygiene for sleeves and labels. Hiring is leveled so that trainers handle no more than 30 new workers a week.
Protecting the Deadline
Rather than padding each activity, the team estimated realistic durations and held back three weeks as one shared cushion that sits after the last critical activity, ahead of the end of trials. Goldratt (1997) proposed this approach in critical chain project management, pooling safety time where it protects the deadline. Steyn (2001) examined the fundamentals of critical chain scheduling and concluded that pooling buffers and managing resource dependencies can shorten schedules and focus management attention, while noting that behavioral changes are needed for it to work. Buffer consumption will be tracked weekly against progress on the critical path.
Tracking Progress
Each week Herrera reports percent complete on critical path activities, buffer consumed and partner milestones due in the next month. If more than half the buffer is used while less than half the critical path is complete, the project board meets to approve recovery actions, such as overtime for the electrical crew or temporary rental refrigeration units.
Contingency for the Utility
Because the utility upgrade is critical and outside the company's control, the plan includes a fallback: if the upgrade slips more than three weeks, rented generators can power refrigeration temporarily at a cost of about $45,000 a month.
Conclusion
The bouquet facility's schedule is built backward from Valentine's Day, with a critical path through the utility upgrade, refrigeration installation and commissioning. Partner milestones are scheduled and owned like internal tasks, scarce electricians and floral workers are planned and leveled and a pooled buffer with clear tracking rules protects a deadline that the market, not the company, has set.
References
Goldratt, E. M. (1997). Critical chain. North River Press.
Steyn, H. (2001). An investigation into the fundamentals of critical chain project scheduling. International Journal of Project Management, 19(6), 363-369. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(00)00026-0
Williams, T. M. (2005). Assessing and moving on from the dominant project management discourse in the light of project overruns. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 52(4), 497-508. https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2005.856572
What the OPS 425 Week 3 instructions ask
Week 3 assignments in OPS 425 generally ask students to develop a schedule and resource plan for a supply chain project. Typical requirements include the work broken into dated steps with their links, identification of the critical path, milestones including those owned by partners, resource requirements and constraints, resource leveling and approaches to protect the schedule, such as buffers. Some versions ask how to handle activities controlled by other organizations. Use the project from earlier weeks, present the schedule clearly in a list or chart description and support the plan with project scheduling research cited in APA, explaining how the schedule will be monitored.
How this OPS 425 Week 3 example is built
The model paper begins with the date that cannot move: the grocery chain's stores must receive Valentine's bouquets during the week before February 14, so trial production must end by mid-January. Working backward, it lists about twenty activities, from signing the lease to trial runs, with durations and dependencies. The longest chain runs through the utility's upgrade of electrical service, needed for refrigeration, then refrigeration installation and commissioning and trial runs, leaving about three weeks of float. Partner milestones, such as the grocery chain's packaging approval and farms' stem volume agreements, are placed on the schedule with owners. A hiring plan ramps from 20 to 140 workers. A project buffer protects the deadline, and weekly tracking compares buffer used with work done.
OPS 425 Week 3 grading rubric: where the points go
Strong schedule papers make dependencies and constraints visible. Graders look for a complete activity list with realistic durations, dependencies that reveal the critical path and milestones that include partner actions with named owners. Credit goes to a resource plan that addresses the scarcest resources, to leveling where demand exceeds supply and to deliberate protection of the deadline, such as a project buffer. A rule for when slippage triggers action, tied to how much buffer is gone, shows control. Research on scheduling and project overruns supports the plan. Clear presentation of the schedule and carefully formatted APA sources complete a strong paper.
OPS 425 Week 3 help: mistakes to avoid
Schedules for supply chain projects often omit activities other organizations control, such as permits, utility work or a customer's approvals, which then become surprises. Put them on the schedule with owners. Another frequent problem is padding every activity, which hides where the real risk is; consider pooling protection in a project buffer. Students also forget resource limits, especially people who must be hired and trained before a launch. Show the ramp. Some papers identify a critical path without explaining what it means for management attention. Name what the project manager will watch. Finally, describe how progress will be measured weekly. A tutor can help you check your dependencies if the critical path seems wrong.
Related OPS 425 sample papers
Other OPS 425 week samples
- OPS 425 Week 1: Supply Chain Projects and Value
- OPS 425 Week 2: Scope and Stakeholders
- OPS 425 Week 4: Technology and Responsibility
- OPS 425 Week 5: Risk Mitigation and Closeout
More BS in Business sample papers
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- PM 300 Week 3: Governance and Project Environments
- PM 310 Week 3: Development Approach and Life Cycle
OPS 425 Week 3 questions, answered
What does OPS 425 Week 3 usually cover?
It usually covers scheduling and resource planning for a supply chain project: activities, durations and dependencies, the critical path, partner milestones, resource plans and protecting the deadline.
Where can I find a free OPS 425 Week 3 sample paper?
The Week 3 paper above schedules a flower importer's bouquet facility backward from Valentine's Day, and it is free to read.
What is a project buffer?
Time added at the end of a schedule's critical chain, instead of padding each task, to absorb delays and protect the deadline, with consumption tracked as the project proceeds.
How do you schedule activities controlled by partners?
List them as activities or milestones with owners at the partner organization, agree on dates in advance and track them as closely as internal work.
Why plan resources as well as time?
Because a schedule that ignores resource limits, such as workers who must be hired and trained, may be impossible to carry out even if its logic is correct.
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