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In week 1, the was no in person class; however, without actually owning one, I was able to skim through the contents of Chapter 1 of the text to stay caught up for when classes were in full effect.

Additionally, our section did brief introductions on the FOL discussion board in which we introduced ourselves and gave interesting facts about ourselves. I found this activity engaging and allowed for the ice to be broken before our first in-person meeting.

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In week 2, we had our first face to face class in which we discussed what are public agencies as well as their importance. We identified examples of public agencies such as hospitals, schools, and military and had a conversation about how they are funded; through taxpayer dollars. In the last hour of the session, in groups, we researched public agencies and prepared a PowerPoint to show our findings. Our group did a presentation on Service Canada and was surprised to find that this agency has approximately 204.7 billion in expenses. Additionally, we agreed to remain in these groups for our SILEX assignment.

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In week 3, We were involved in a zoom video conference with Nicola Raycraft, a representative from HealthPRO Canada, who enlightened us of what exactly the do and what would be required of us as students for our SILEX Assignment.

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Week 4, we had a short review of the video conference from the prior week at the start of our in class session. After, we began module 4, Risk Management. We defined what a risk is and what they look like in the public sector supply chain. We discussed ways of mitigating risk by avoiding, transferring and managing it. To reinforce module 4's learning objectives, we read a case which described the risk of hiring someone who is inadequately prepared/insured to do a job for a public school. After evaluating the case, we discussed the possible implications of negligence in the public sector, specifically the school, and what is the right way to handle risks. For this case, it would have been better to avoid the risk by hiring someone who was insured to do the job.

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I did absolutely no studying at all. First half of the semester had me burnt out mentally and physically so I took the week to rest. I still passed all my midterm exams convincingly so win-win.

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In module 5, we discussed procurement and the law. I was not able to attend this lecture due to unavoidable circumstances which forced me to return to my home country for 5 days; however, I went through the lecture slides. Interestingly I learned that Canada has two types of contracts resulting from competitive procurement. Contract A which defines the rules for competitive processes, and Contract B The contract which is entered by agency and successful bidder. This new piece of knowledge will have proved to be essential in the completion of the Silex Project.

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In week 6, after concluding our individual case analysis of the city of Hamildon, we collaborated in groups to identify what was the city’s immediate and secondary issues. After clearly defining the issues, Me, Jack, Keenan and Aarush discussed the ways we each individually suggested the City of Hamildon address all the issues we identified. We chose the most suitable suggestions by picking the best three between all of our individual reports.

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Week 13- Contract and Supplier Management

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Week 13- Contract and Supplier Management

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We started of this weeks lecture by revising week 11's content of ethics and fraud. After, we dove right into module 13 which spoke about contract and supplier management. We discussed the different types of contracts and interestingly, I learnt that the LDSCB does a blank purchase order with Home Hardware for some supplies which are essential for the daily on goings of the school year.

The importance of supplier management and the impacts of a poorly performing supplier was also discussed. We identified ways to evaluate suppliers and some performance metrics (cost) which are important to manage when handling a supplier efficiently. Debriefing was also discussed, where we broached what a debrief is and why a supplier my request a debrief. It is more common for rejected suppliers to request debriefs.

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In week 12, our class presented on our findings and recommendations for HealthPRO Canada. Based on the information provided to us by HealthPRO we suggested the transitioned to using the RFSO model as well as Vendor Managed Inventory.

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In week 10, we discussed and defined ethics and fraud. We went through sites we could visit to view the code of ethics for public sector purchasing in Ontario. We spoke about conflicts of interests and whether a person using organization funds to buy a tv is unethical or a conflict of interest or both. We agreed that this would be misuse of public funds and would be deemed both unethical and a conflict of interest.

We defined corporate scandals and what would be considered a corporate scandal.

Overall, we had a very engaging and thought provoking lesson in module 10.

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In week 14, we discussed the core principles of the BPS directive and the importance of the BPS. Kim details the importance while sharing a story of how knowing about the BPS gave her current coworker an edge in landing a job in public sector procurement. Next, we briefly went into trade agreements where we discussed the Canadian Free Trade Agreement amongst others.

At the end of the lecture (for the 4th semester in a row) I was used as a human selfie stick to capture a photo of our last gathering as a class.

At the end of a long semester, I want to thank you Kim for all the effort and support you put into us as students trying to make something of ourselves. I have learnt so much throughout these 14 weeks and I wish you nothing but further growth and success in the years to come.

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In this module we discussed how purchasing and sales documents are drafted and what is to be included. Kim expressed the importance of clear specifications and scope of work. At the end of the session we had an activity where we created and wrote specifications for a product and described them to the class. The class would then have to guess what the product was based on the specifications.

This activity highlighted why it is important to be as specific as possible when describing a product you need from a supplier to avoid mistakes and unrealized expectation.

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In week 9, we finished our discussion from week 8 about document drafting and specifications and discussed what criterion are used to evaluate suppliers and the quality of the services. We spoke about qualified and unqualified suppliers which brought up the topic of debriefings.

Debriefing occur when a supplier wants to meet to discuss why they were or were not selected after the bidding process.

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In week 11, we had our working session for our Silex Assignment. Me, Keenan, Aarush, and Jack worked on our individual parts of the assignment. I personally was having a hard time understanding what was required for my part (Research Information) so I asked Kim for a nudge in the right direction which she provided and was very helpful.

Thank you Kim!