| Course | OPS 425 Project Management in Supply Chain Management (OPS/425) |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Risk mitigation and closeout plan |
| Length | about 1,038 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 5
Generators for Hurricane Season and a Review After Mother's Day: Risk Mitigation and Closeout for a Bouquet Facility
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
OPS/425: Project Management in Supply Chain Management
Week 5 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Andes Bloom Imports, its risks, results and figures are composites written for a model paper.
The bouquet assembly facility for Andes Bloom Imports, the composite flower importer near Miami International Airport, opened in mid-January and shipped its first Valentine's bouquets to the grocery chain's 600 stores in early February. Its year contains two extreme weeks, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, and a hurricane season from June through November. This paper sets out how the project managed risk through launch and the first peak seasons and how it was closed.
Risks Across the Chain
Kleindorfer and Saad (2005) distinguished supply chain disruption risks from risks of coordinating supply and demand, and argued that managing disruption requires specifying the sources of risk, assessing them and mitigating them through practices such as diversification and robustness. Craighead et al. (2007) found that the severity of supply chain disruptions was related to the density and complexity of the chain and the criticality of nodes, and that recovery and warning capabilities reduced severity. Andes Bloom's register reflects both points. Its main risks, rated on likelihood and impact from 1 to 5:
Refrigeration failure during a peak week (2, 5): flowers lost within hours.
Cargo space shortage on flights from Bogotá and Quito before Valentine's Day (4, 4).
Hurricane strike on South Florida (2, 5): power and road disruption for days.
Shortage of trained assembly workers in peak weeks (3, 4).
Grocery chain sales of the bouquet line below forecast (3, 3).
Farm stem shortages from weather in Colombia (3, 3).
Mitigation and Contingency
Refrigeration: redundant compressors in each cold room, two 1,000-kilowatt backup generators with three days of fuel on site and a service contract with four-hour response. Trigger: any compressor alarm or grid outage starts the generators automatically; the maintenance lead is paged.
Cargo capacity: allocation agreements with two cargo airlines for the four weeks before Valentine's Day, signed in September, and a standby charter option. Trigger: a confirmed booking below 90 percent of planned volume three weeks out activates the charter.
Hurricane: from June through November, inventory in Miami is kept to about two days; when a storm enters the forecast cone, farms hold shipments, the facility switches to generators and trucks are staged inland. A partner in Orlando provides temporary cold storage.
Labor: a reserve list of 60 temporary workers trained in a two-day course before each peak.
Demand: a review clause in the supply agreement allows assortment and volume adjustments every quarter.
Farm supply: the top 15 farms commit volume in advance, and alternate farms are qualified for key varieties.
A refrigerated building without backup power is a very expensive warehouse for compost.
How the Launch Went
The facility shipped about 86,000 bouquets in Valentine's week, against a target of 90,000. Cargo space held; one airline delivered 6 percent less than its allocation, covered by the second airline. A compressor tripped on February 9 and the redundant unit took the load within minutes. The main problem was labor: 40 temporary workers had been trained, not 60, because training started late, and assembly fell behind on two days. Vase life tests at stores averaged 7.6 days, above the seven-day target. Mother's Day in May went better, with 92,000 bouquets shipped after the full reserve was trained.
Closing the Project
Closure followed a checklist. The project board accepted the facility after the Mother's Day peak, when it had run at full volume. Contracts with the general contractor and refrigeration installer were closed after punch lists were completed and warranties recorded. The final project cost was about $8.7 million against an $8.5 million budget, with the overrun mainly from generator upgrades added after the utility's delay in Week 3. Operations took over the facility with a handover file of procedures, maintenance schedules, the hurricane plan and the risk register, which became an operating register.
Lessons With Partners
Newell et al. (2006) studied project reviews and found that lessons recorded in databases were rarely used, and that knowledge moved between projects more through people and social networks than through documents. Andes Bloom therefore held its lessons-learned session in person, with representatives of three farms, the refrigerated carrier and the grocery chain's floral team, and assigned each lesson to someone who would carry it forward. Key lessons: start temporary worker training eight weeks before a peak; book cargo allocations in August; involve the grocery chain earlier in packaging design; and file utility applications before design is final, using preliminary load estimates.
Monitoring Risk After Closeout
Risk management does not end when the project closes. The operating risk register, now owned by the facility manager, is reviewed monthly and before each peak. Two new risks were added after launch: dependence on a single packaging supplier for the grocery chain's printed sleeves and the growing cost of generator fuel during long outages. The facility manager also runs a generator test under full load each May, before hurricane season, and a cargo booking review each August, before the autumn wedding season and Valentine's Day planning.
What the Partners Changed
The lessons led to changes outside Andes Bloom. The carrier added a second refrigerated trailer to the Valentine's schedule. Three farms moved their packing shifts earlier so boxes reach the origin airport before cargo cutoffs, which the tracking data had shown to be a frequent delay. The grocery chain agreed to finalize Valentine's assortments by October instead of December.
Value Against the Week 1 Measures
Vase life at stores: 7.6 days against a seven-day target. Days from cutting to store: about 4.8 against a five-day target. Store in-stock rate for the bouquet line: 94 percent. Shrink: 9 percent of bouquets unsold, below the grocery chain's 12 percent average for floral. Gross margin per bouquet: about 18 percent higher than buying pre-made bouquets from farms.
Conclusion
The bouquet facility's risks came from the whole chain: refrigeration, air cargo, hurricanes, labor, demand and farms. Mitigation with clear triggers protected the launch, though late training of temporary workers cost bouquets in Valentine's week. The project closed with acceptance after the second peak, closed contracts, a handover to operations and lessons shared with partners, and the value measures set in Week 1 show the facility meeting or beating its targets.
References
Craighead, C. W., Blackhurst, J., Rungtusanatham, M. J., & Handfield, R. B. (2007). The severity of supply chain disruptions: Design characteristics and mitigation capabilities. Decision Sciences, 38(1), 131-156. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5915.2007.00151.x
Kleindorfer, P. R., & Saad, G. H. (2005). Managing disruption risks in supply chains. Production and Operations Management, 14(1), 53-68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1937-5956.2005.tb00009.x
Newell, S., Bresnen, M., Edelman, L., Scarbrough, H., & Swan, J. (2006). Sharing knowledge across projects: Limits to ICT-led project review practices. Management Learning, 37(2), 167-185. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507606063441
What the OPS 425 Week 5 instructions ask
The last OPS 425 assignment usually asks students to plan risk mitigation for a supply chain project and describe how the project will be closed. Prompts may ask for risk identification and assessment, mitigation and contingency plans, including risks that come from the wider supply chain, monitoring and triggers, then closeout activities such as acceptance, contract closure, transition to operations, lessons learned and evaluation of benefits. A few prompts also want a look back across the project as a whole. Use the project from earlier weeks, show risks and responses specifically and draw on journal work about supply disruptions and project learning, cited in APA, describing how lessons will be shared with partners.
How this OPS 425 Week 5 example is built
The sample paper sets the facility's risk register around a calendar dominated by two peak weeks and a hurricane season. It rates risks such as refrigeration failure during peak, cargo space shortages on flights from Bogotá before Valentine's Day, a hurricane striking South Florida, shortage of trained assembly workers and the grocery chain's sales falling short. Each has mitigation and a trigger: backup generators and redundant compressors, capacity agreements with two cargo airlines, a hurricane plan with pre-season inventory rules, a reserve list of trained temporary workers and a review clause in the supply agreement. Launch results are reported, closeout steps are listed and lessons are recorded with farms, the carrier and the grocery chain. Value measures are compared with targets.
OPS 425 Week 5 grading rubric: where the points go
A strong final paper treats risk and closure as active management. Graders look for risks drawn from the whole supply chain, rated for likelihood and impact, with mitigation, contingency plans, owners and triggers. Credit goes to closeout that covers acceptance, contracts, financial closure, transition to operations, lessons learned with partners and a benefits review using measures set at the start. Honest reporting of what went wrong earns more than a list of successes. Research on supply chain disruption and project learning supports the plan, and a short note on what partners will do differently next season shows the lessons were used.
OPS 425 Week 5 help: mistakes to avoid
Risk sections in supply chain project papers often list only internal risks, such as budget overruns, and miss disruptions from partners or nature. Look across the chain. Another frequent gap is mitigation without triggers: how will the team know when to switch to a backup? Name the signal. Closeout is often reduced to a celebration; it should include contract closure, transfer of responsibilities and a documented review. Students also run lessons-learned sessions internally only, when partners hold half the lessons. Invite them. Finally, compare results with the measures set in the first week, not new ones chosen after the fact. If your list of risks stops at your own loading dock, a tutor can walk the chain with you from farm to store.
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OPS 425 Week 5 questions, answered
What does OPS 425 Week 5 usually cover?
It usually covers risk mitigation and closeout for supply chain projects: identifying and rating risks across the chain, mitigation and contingency plans, then acceptance, contract closure, transition, lessons learned and a benefits review.
Where can I find a free OPS 425 Week 5 sample paper?
The Week 5 paper above plans risk mitigation and closeout for a flower importer's bouquet facility, and it is free to read.
What is a contingency plan in a supply chain project?
A prepared response, put into action when a defined trigger occurs, such as switching to backup generators when grid power fails or moving freight to a second airline.
What should project closeout include?
Formal acceptance, closure of contracts and accounts, handover to operations, release of resources, lessons learned and an evaluation of results against the original objectives.
Why include partners in lessons learned?
Because supply chain projects cross company boundaries, partners hold knowledge about what worked and what failed that the lead company cannot see alone.
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