| Course | BU 506 Leading Change and Operational Excellence |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Control plan |
| Length | About 740 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for BU 506 Unit 7
Six Controls, Each Guarding One Part of the Redesign: A Control Plan for a Composite Ohio Flooring Retailer's Special Orders, Built for After the Project Team Moves On
Student Name
Business, Herzing University
BU 506: Leading Change and Operational Excellence
Instructor Name
February 23, 2026
Six Controls, Each Guarding One Part of the Redesign: A Control Plan for a Composite Ohio Flooring Retailer's Special Orders, Built for After the Project Team Moves On
Why the Plan Exists
The special-order redesign goes live at Westerville on February 23 and at the other three showrooms on March 9. For the first weeks, people will watch it closely because it is new. Bateman (2005) found that process improvements frequently fade once the project ends and attention moves on, and Glover et al. (2011) found that the conditions after an improvement event, including follow-up and management support, shaped whether its gains lasted. This plan assigns what continues to be watched, by whom and how often, and what happens when a reading falls outside its range, so that the redesign does not depend on my attention or anyone else's.
The Controls
| Control | Definition and source | Read by, how often | Acceptable range | Response when outside | Protects |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1. Install-ready on time | Share of special orders staged by end of the business day before install, same definition as the Unit 1 baseline; warehouse staging record | Operations coordinator, weekly; four-week figure to operations manager monthly | Four-week figure at or above 75% | Below 75% for one four-week period: review late orders by reason within 5 business days | The overall result |
| C2. Calculator overrides | Share of orders where the consultant changed the calculated carton count; order screen log | Buyer, weekly | Up to 15% of orders per showroom | Above 15%: buyer and installation manager review the overrides and adjust waste allowances or the carton table | Carton calculation (redesigned step 1) |
| C3. Paper fallback use | Share of special orders entered from the in-home paper form; order screen source field | Operations coordinator, weekly | Up to 10% per showroom | Above 10% for two readings: visit the showroom and ask why | Order capture at the showroom (step 1) |
| C4. Carton table freshness | Business days between receiving a new price sheet and updating the table; buyer's price sheet log | Operations manager, monthly audit | 2 business days or fewer | Any update later than 2 days: update immediately and check orders placed in between | The data the calculator depends on |
| C5. Lot recorded at receiving | Share of flagged orders with lot numbers recorded on receipt; receiving form | Receiving lead, daily | 100% | Any miss: record at staging and note the cause | Early lot detection (step 6) |
| C6. Material problems at staging | Orders with wrong quantity, mixed lot or wrong item found at staging, by reason; staging log | Staging clerk records; operations coordinator reviews monthly | Under 7% of orders | Above 7%: root cause review of that month's cases | The root cause found in Unit 3 |
Ranges and Statistical Limits
The ranges in the table are management thresholds, not statistical control limits. Montgomery (2019) describes the p-chart for proportions such as the share of orders on time, with limits set at three standard errors around the average proportion. Applied to weekly data, those limits would be too wide to be useful. With about 35 special orders a week and an expected on-time rate near 78 percent, three standard errors is about 21 percentage points, so the chart would accept any week between roughly 57 and 99 percent. Over four-week periods of about 140 orders the band narrows to about 10 points either side, roughly 68 to 88 percent.
For that reason C1 is judged on four-week figures. Once the full rollout has run for eight weeks, I will calculate p-chart limits from that period's data, as Shewhart (1931) originally proposed for separating ordinary variation from signals worth investigating, and replace the 75 percent threshold if the limits show it is too tight or too loose.
The Human Side
The most likely failure is not a measurement drifting but a new step quietly abandoned on a busy Saturday. Two controls exist mainly for that. C3 detects consultants returning to paper, since a showroom drifting back to the old route will show a rising fallback share long before late orders rise. C2 detects the calculator being overridden as a habit rather than for a reason. Both are read weekly because they are leading indicators, and both point the response at a conversation with the showroom rather than a reprimand, since Unit 5 found that the reasons people avoid the new steps are often good ones. A rising override share at one showroom may mean its consultants have found rooms the allowance table handles badly, and that is information for the buyer and the installation manager, not a discipline problem.
Documentation and Training as Controls
The revised special-order procedure is itself a control. It will be reviewed every six months by the operations coordinator and whenever a control response changes a step. Training on the order screen is added to the onboarding checklist for new consultants and administrators, owned by each showroom manager, because a new hire trained by a colleague who learned the old process is the most direct route back to it.
What the Plan Leaves Out
The plan deliberately does not control everything that could be measured. It does not track how long each consultant takes to enter an order once the pilot ends, because a timing measure on individuals would turn a process control into a performance review and would invite the kind of gaming Unit 5 warned about. It does not watch manufacturer lead times, which affect the overall result but are outside the redesign and belong to purchasing's own vendor reviews. And it does not add a control for accessories such as transitions and stair nosing, which the administrators' same-day review was designed to catch; if C6 shows accessory errors rising, a control can be added then. Six controls is already near the limit of what a small operations team will read every week, and a plan that asks for more than people will look at tends to be read by nobody.
Handing Over
Once the March 6 decision is made, I keep responsibility for C1 and C3, but every other control belongs to the role closest to the work. The operations manager receives the monthly summary and decides whether a breach needs more than the listed response. If I leave the role, the coordinator who replaces me inherits C1 and C3 with this plan.
References
Bateman, N. (2005). Sustainability: The elusive element of process improvement. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 25(3), 261-276. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443570510581862
Glover, W. J., Farris, J. A., Van Aken, E. M., & Doolen, T. L. (2011). Critical success factors for the sustainability of Kaizen event human resource outcomes: An empirical study. International Journal of Production Economics, 132(2), 197-213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2011.04.005
Montgomery, D. C. (2019). Introduction to statistical quality control (8th ed.). Wiley.
Shewhart, W. A. (1931). Economic control of quality of manufactured product. Van Nostrand.
The Herzing BU 506 Unit 7 instructions
In Unit 7, BU 506 asks students to write a control plan for the improved process. Requirements typically include deciding what continues to be measured, defining each measure and its source, naming who reads it and how often, setting an acceptable range, stating what happens when a reading falls outside it and linking each control to the part of the redesign it protects. Strong plans also address the human side: what stops a new step from being quietly dropped. Statistical limits are welcome where the data support them but are not always required. Modeling the plan on your employer's actual reporting pack can expose internal material, so build it from the redesign itself.
How the BU 506 Unit 7 example is put together
Bateman and Glover set up the paper's case for sustaining gains after attention moves on. A six-row table is the core of the deliverable, covering the overall on-time rate, calculator overrides, paper fallback use, carton table freshness, lot recording at receiving and material problems at staging. A section on ranges and limits works through the p-chart arithmetic for weekly and four-week data, with Montgomery and Shewhart, and explains when limits will replace thresholds. The human side section explains two leading indicators. Documentation and training are treated as controls. A section on what the plan leaves out explains three deliberate omissions, and the close hands each control to a role.
Where the points sit in the BU 506 Unit 7 rubric
The control plan rubric usually weighs completeness of each control, linkage to the redesign, response rules, attention to sustainment behavior, statistical reasoning where used and clarity. Completeness earns credit when every control states its measure, source, reader, interval and range. Linkage is scored on whether each control protects a named part of the change. Response rules earn full points when a reading outside range triggers a specific action by a specific role. Sustainment behavior rewards leading indicators that catch abandonment before results fall. Statistical reasoning scores when limits are used correctly or their absence is explained. Instructors often credit plans that keep the number of controls small enough to be read.
BU 506 Unit 7 help before you submit
Control plans lose points when they list measures with no owner, interval or response. Another common weakness is tracking only the final result, which falls after the damage is done. Writers sometimes add control limits computed from too little data, or from data that predate the change. Some plans measure individuals and turn a process control into a performance review. Documentation and training are often forgotten, though new hires are the usual route back to the old process. Plans copied from a workplace reporting pack can disclose internal figures. If you need a control table built around your own redesign, our writers can help you draft it.
Get a BU 506 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Please include the Unit 7 instructions, your BU 506 rubric and the implementation plan the assignment builds on, plus any control template your section provides. We write a custom example that ties each control to what it protects, defines every measure at source, fixes ranges in advance and names an owned response. First custom sample free, back in 24 to 48 hours.
More BU 506 papers and MBA samples
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BU 506 Unit 7 questions, answered
How many controls should the plan carry?
Fewer than most drafts include. Three or four that somebody will genuinely read beat a dozen that quietly stop being produced by the second month. Every control costs somebody time, and a plan demanding more attention than the improvement saved will be abandoned first. Choose the smallest set that would catch the redesign slipping back, and say why the others were left out.
Does a control plan need statistical limits?
Only if your instructions and reading call for them. Where the section teaches charting, apply it and show how the limits were derived rather than asserting them. Where it does not, a stated acceptable range with a reasoned basis does the same job, and a plan quietly claiming statistical control without the method behind it is worse than one that never tried.
Can I model the plan on the reporting pack we use at work?
Use the shape of it from memory if that helps you think, but nothing from the document itself. Reporting packs, control charts, quality records and dashboard exports are internal outputs your organization owns. Build the control table for the composite process instead, define the measures yourself, and keep every threshold and figure labeled as case material.
Where can I find a free BU 506 Unit 7 sample paper?
You can read the whole BU 506 Unit 7 control plan above at no cost, including the six-row control table, the p-chart arithmetic and margin notes. Controlling a different process? Send the assignment and we write a matching plan free, typically within two days.
How many controls should a BU 506 Unit 7 plan have?
Enough to protect each changed step and few enough that people will read them. The sample uses six, two of them leading indicators for quiet abandonment, and explains three measures it chose to leave out.