Team Case Assignment: Product Classification for Spend Analysis Introduction A volunteer Humanitarian Assistance operation, Iraq Displaced Relief (IDR), has been operating in Balad, Iraq since the beginning of the year supporting displaced people in Iraq. IDR is a relatively new non-profit organization focused on providing basic medical supplies and healthcare to refugees in war-torn countries. The organization's venture into Iraq is a new experience in the complexities of running a complicated supply chain, even on a very small scale. You have been asked to help analyze Iraq Displaced Relief's expenditures to see if there are ways that their supply chain can be simplified so that IDR may better leverage their total spend. Your analysis will form the basis of a report to be shared not only with the leadership of IDR but also with many of their key charitable contributors. The group's health and welfare expenses -- the day-to-day needs required to live in an austere environment such as Balad -- are all funded through charitable donations of cash or commodities from church groups located across the United States. In Balad, Iraq Displaced Relief distributes medical supplies from the donated warehouse and office space. IDR purchases necessary medical supplies and distributes configured packages to a number of local Iraqi agencies. The local agencies deliver the items to villages throughout central Iraq. The majority of funding for the medical supplies comes from a number of charitable trusts from the Midwest United States. Although automation support is severely limited, the group does keep track of its expenditures using a rudimentary excel spreadsheet. IDR's Director of Purchasing, a volunteer herself, has provided you with an Excel spreadsheet listing the top expenditures for the last month. Details on the spreadsheet: · The spreadsheet lists the top expenditures for medical supplies for the month of August 2009. The table includes information on the Source of the Material, the Part number that is used to track the item, a short Product description, the number of purchases and the total dollar value spent on that item for the month. · The Stock-keeping unit or Part Number used by IDR is an internally derived number, which represents the Vendor's Identification number. Although an alpha character was originally designed to signify a specific vendor, the alpha character now is only used to signify the type of material. SKUs starting with A through E represent items generally considered to be medical or surgical in nature -- covering everything from bandages to surgical gloves to sutures. SKUs starting with F are generally regarded as pharmaceutical items. SKUs starting with M characterize either durable items (items that can be reused many times) or equipment items. · The alpha characters are not shown in the spreadsheet for your team exercise. For your team assignment, categorize the items listed according to the scheme suggested in the previou.

1. Team Case Assignment: Product Classification for Spend
Analysis
Introduction
A volunteer Humanitarian Assistance operation, Iraq Displaced
Relief (IDR), has been operating in Balad, Iraq since the
beginning of the year supporting displaced people in Iraq. IDR
is a relatively new non-profit organization focused on providing
basic medical supplies and healthcare to refugees in war-torn
countries. The organization's venture into Iraq is a new
experience in the complexities of running a complicated supply
chain, even on a very small scale. You have been asked to help
analyze Iraq Displaced Relief's expenditures to see if there are
ways that their supply chain can be simplified so that IDR may
better leverage their total spend. Your analysis will form the
basis of a report to be shared not only with the leadership of
IDR but also with many of their key charitable contributors.
The group's health and welfare expenses -- the day-to-day needs
required to live in an austere environment such as Balad -- are
all funded through charitable donations of cash or commodities
from church groups located across the United States. In Balad,
Iraq Displaced Relief distributes medical supplies from the
donated warehouse and office space. IDR purchases necessary
medical supplies and distributes configured packages to a
number of local Iraqi agencies. The local agencies deliver the
items to villages throughout central Iraq. The majority of
funding for the medical supplies comes from a number of
charitable trusts from the Midwest United States. Although
automation support is severely limited, the group does keep
track of its expenditures using a rudimentary excel spreadsheet.
IDR's Director of Purchasing, a volunteer herself, has provided
you with an Excel spreadsheet listing the top expenditures for
the last month.
Details on the spreadsheet:
· The spreadsheet lists the top expenditures for medical supplies

2. for the month of August 2009. The table includes information
on the Source of the Material, the Part number that is used to
track the item, a short Product description, the number of
purchases and the total dollar value spent on that item for the
month.
· The Stock-keeping unit or Part Number used by IDR is an
internally derived number, which represents the Vendor's
Identification number. Although an alpha character was
originally designed to signify a specific vendor, the alpha
character now is only used to signify the type of material. SKUs
starting with A through E represent items generally considered
to be medical or surgical in nature -- covering everything from
bandages to surgical gloves to sutures. SKUs starting with F are
generally regarded as pharmaceutical items. SKUs starting with
M characterize either durable items (items that can be reused
many times) or equipment items.
· The alpha characters are not shown in the spreadsheet for your
team exercise. For your team assignment, categorize the items
listed according to the scheme suggested in the previous bullet
point. Add an alpha character to identify a product category as
described above. You may have approximately five groups (A
through E) representing items generally considered to be
medical or surgical in nature. Please note that the "correct"
solution has five categories.
· Identify pharmaceutical items with an F and durable items or
equipment with M. For example, Allegra-D, identified by
00088-1090-47 would be categorized F00088-1090-47, and so
on for all of the other items.
· The Vendor, Product Nomenclature (although often
undecipherable except by IDR volunteers), the numbers of
purchases, and the total value of purchases are generally
considered to be accurate data.
Spreadsheet Download

3. Solution
Template File, which is attached as well. This file should be
used for this assignment.
Assignment Deliverable
· Deliverable: The deliverable for this assignment is a
spreadsheet file with your item classifications, labeled by an
alpha character. Please turn in the spreadsheet sorted by SKU
number.
· Submit Assignment: Please have one team member submit
your team's file into the M3L1 Dropbox: Team Project: Product
Classification Exercise by clicking on the "Next" button at the
bottom of this content page. Include your team number in the
file name.
· Post to Discussion Forum: Please post the team assignment
file to the M3L1 Discussion Forum: Production Classification
Exercise for other teams to review and post comments. Be sure
to include the team number and teammates names in the file or
in the post.

4. Writing Women in Premodern China EAS 380H
Sample Format for Essay Proposal
1. Name: ________ Student ID: ________
2. Topic (copied from handout; this example is from a different
course) [1pt]
Scholars have identified the lyric (ci 詞) form as one devoted to
expressing
emotions or feelings (qing 情). Choose one to three lyrics and
discuss what
different techniques they use to portray emotions. How would
you describe the
emotions being expressed? What sort of emotional resolution or
conclusion is
reached by the end of the lyrics?
3. Primary Texts (from assigned readings) [1pt]
to “Note after Note” (Sheng-sheng man)”, by Li Qingzhao
(Owen, 581)
to “The Charms of Nian-nu” (Nian-nü jiao): Meditation on the
Past at Red Cliff”, by Su Shi

5. (Owen, 579-80)
4. Thesis (your answer to the question/s in one or two
sentences) [2pts]
Li Qingzhao and Su Shi use different techniques to express their
emotions in their lyrics
(including natural imagery, direct description, and historical
imagination), but they both
come to a similar conclusion of incompleteness.
5. Outline (three points supporting your thesis) [3pts]
A. Li Qingzhao’s lyric expresses emotions of longing and
sadness through
descriptions of nature and her state of mind.
B. Su Shi uses his lyric to paint a grand vision of a historical
hero to express his
feelings of admiration.
C. Both lyrics end with a sense of incompleteness, of not being
able to reach the
other person or to express one’s emotions fully.

6. 6. Two other sources (other than the texbook, with a brief
description) [3pts]
Egan, Ronald. The Burden of Female Talent—The Poet Li
Qingzhao and Her History in
China. (Book) [This books gives important background
information for Li’s lyrics.]
Hegel, Robert E. “The Sights and Sounds of Red Cliffs: On
Reading Su Shi.” Chinese
Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), Vol. 20 (Dec.,
1998), pp. 11-30. [This article
gives other examples of Su Shi writing about historical
imagination and Red Cliff.]
Writing Women in Premodern China EAS 380H1F (2019
Winter)

7. Essay Assignment
Below are ten topics, classified as poetry or prose. You are free
to do your essay on any one of
these topics (not a pair). To find specific texts, refer to readings
indicated. (The L code
corresponds to the readings listed in the lecture modules on
Quercus.) You may use any of the
texts in the readings, even those not covered in class.
Poetry Prose
Classic of Poetry (L2:1)
Many of the poems in the Classic of Poetry are written
in the voices of women. Choose two or three poems
and use them to discuss what you feel were the
challenges faced by women in Zhou China. How did
these poems help women cope with these challenges?
Confucian and Daoist Classics (L1:1-6)
Describe some of the constraints put on women’s
behavior by Confucian Classics (Changes, Rites,
Analects). What anxieties in men about women’s

8. behavior do these texts address? How do the Daoist
texts subvert or critique these constraints?
Yuefu and Old Poems (L2:2-3)
Yuefu and Old Poems both speak about women, and
speak in the voice of women. Choose two to four
poems to contrast these differing viewpoints. How do
the portrayals of women differ from the way women
are shown to speak for themselves?
Ban Zhao (L4:2)
Explain the tension between the “ideal” woman
portrayed in Precepts for My Daughters, and how
Ban Zhao expressed herself in her other writings,
and lived her life as a cultural figure with
authority? Why do you think she wrote Precepts?
Tang Women Poets (L5:2-4)
Whose poetry do you prefer among Li Ye, Yu Xuanji,
and Xue Tao? Why do you prefer it? Use examples
from the other two poets to show why you think the
poetry by your top choice is superior.
Women in Official History (L3:3; L4:3-4; L5:1 )
Official histories often portray women as

9. problematic figures and sources of instability.
Using at least two examples from the readings,
describe how women use the means available to
them to exert power.
Li Qingzhao (L8:1)
We have writing in a variety of genres by Li
Qingzhao—poetry, lyrics, letters, essays, and literary
criticism. Identify one or more major themes in her
writing, and show how she develops them in different
genres.
Cross-Dressing Women (L11:1-4)
Women will sometimes dress/act like men to
employ the privileges and power of men. Using at
least two examples from the readings, describe
what women wanted to achieve by doing this, and
why. What are the dangers of cross-dressing?
Late Ming Courtesans (L9:2-3)
Famous courtesans had a high level of cultural
authority and large audiences. Using examples from
one or both Liang Xiaoyu and Liu Shi, explain how
they use their writing to form their authority, and
explain what goals they wanted to achieve with it.

10. Domesticating Extraordinary Women (L7:2; L9:1)
In Chinese these stories are called chuanqi
(“transmitting the marvelous”). Choose one tale
and discuss what you feel is “marvelous” or
“strange” in the story. How and why is that
marvelous element tamed, controlled, or
domesticated by the end of the story?
Writing Women in Premodern China EAS 380H1F (2019
Winter)
Essay Proposal
The Essay Proposal is due by 11:59pm on Wed 30 Jan 2019,
uploaded to Quercus, where you
can also view a sample and the rubric. In your submission

11. include the following information:
1. Your name and student ID #.
2. Your topic (copied and pasted from the list above). Choose
one only.
3. The primary texts from the readings that you intend to use
(give author, title and page #s).
4. A thesis statement: what is the main point you want to make
in the essay in response to the
topic? State it in one or two sentences in a general way.
5. A brief outline of three or more related points that will
expand upon and support your thesis.
Each of these points should be one sentence.
6. Two other secondary sources you plan to use (online or in
print), with a one sentence
description of why they are useful. Use the bibliography format
shown in the sample.
Essay
The essay itself is due by 11:59pm on Wen 20 Mar 2019, on
Quercus. The penalty for lateness

12. is minus 2% off the grade for the essay per day late. The length
is a minimum of 1500 words
(approx. 5-6 pages, double spaced with one inch margins and a
12 pt. font). You will be graded
25% for language (spelling, grammar); 25% for form
(organization, clarity of argument); 25%
for ideas (points being made); and 25% for analysis (supporting
ideas with the text). See the
rubric on Quercus for more detailed information.
This essay is about your interpretation of the text; it is not a
research paper. The only sources
you are allowed to use are the assigned readings, your lecture
notes, and two other sources,
either online or in print. For suggestions of other sources, see
The Columbia History of Chinese
Literature, individual articles in The Indiana Companion to
Traditional Chinese Literature, and
The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. (See course
syllabus for where to find these.)
To find suitable secondary sources, you may consult online
databases such as “The
Bibliography of Asian Studies” and JSTOR. You may use
Wikipedia to guide you to academic
sources, but do not cite Wikipedia itself as a source. Only use

13. scholarly online sources, not blogs
or discussion forums. You may use sources in Chinese, but you
must translate anything you
quote from them into English in your essay (and put the original
Chinese in a footnote).
Please check to make sure your paper is free of spelling and
grammatical errors. If you are
uncertain, have someone read it over for you to suggest changes
that you will make yourself.
For extra help, see “Writing at the University of Toronto”.
Refer to its list of writing centres,
where staff can help you to plan, organize, write, and revise
academic papers.
Do not have someone else write any part of the paper for you,
buy it from an essay service
or copy any part of the paper from another source (including the
Internet) without proper
citation; this would be plagiarism, an academic offense that will
be reported to the Office of
Student Academic Integrity. Talk to me or the TAs beforehand
if you have any questions
or doubts about your paper.

14. http://go.utlib.ca/cat/10636018
http://go.utlib.ca/cat/10636018
http://go.utlib.ca/cat/10636018
http://go.utlib.ca/cat/10636018
http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/action/showA
dvancedSearch
http://writing.utoronto.ca/
DataIraq Displaced Relief, LLCMonthly Purchases August 1-31
2009SKU NumberVendorProduct NomenclaturePurchasesTotal
Value4509015383OwensADHES TAPE SURG 3" 4S20$
2,048.5000173-0696-00CardinalADVAIR 250/50 DISK 60S9$
46,308.0005299-8179CardinalALBUMIN HUMAN 100 ML10$
51,831.3900088-1090-47McKessonALLEGRA-D 100S10$
51,331.0400024-5421-31CardinalAMBIEN 10MG 100S14$
53,270.4730490-6235SiemensANALYZER BLOOD
GLUCOSE23$ 22,218.4630332-7886FischerANALYZER
CLIN110/240V1$ 44,982.8000029-6086-
12McKessonAUGMENTIN 875MG 20S15$ 67,198.2500168-
0011-35SC JohnsonBACITRACIN OINT 15GM32$
2,099.243596REB2004OwensBANDAGE ELAS 4IN 10S35$
2,310.403583001093BectonBANDAGE GAUZE4.5"100S29$
15,230.606709H30007BectonBASIN EMESIS PLST250S20$

15. 2,585.3600025-1525-51McKessonCELEBREX 200MG 500S4$
53,953.0015463-1498SiemensCOUPLING FIXATION ORT3$
45,540.0000591-5553-50CardinalDOCYCLINE 100MG 50S20$
74,570.674509015381BectonDURAPORE TAPE 1IN 12S22$
9,362.6058160-0857-01McKessonENGERIX-B ADULT
20MCG12$ 143,096.2049502-0500-01CardinalEPI-PEN AUTO
SYR 0.3MG21$ 56,820.480708OC3199BJohnsonFIRST
RESPONDER KIT 5S28$ 121,158.4545254-9551BP
MedFIRST RESPONDER LIFEPACK12$ 110,581.2130452-
2096JohnsonFLASHLIGHT ROUND20$ 31,451.1400173-
0453-01CardinalFLONASE NASAL 0.5% 16G19$
46,993.433642055081JohnsonGLOVE EXAM NITRILE10024$
5,899.503642000440JohnsonGLOVE NS P/FREE LGE10020$
13,860.953642055083JohnsonGLOVES PDRFREE LG100S42$
8,653.9657664-0397-88CardinalGLUCOPHAGE 500MG
EQ10022$ 1,277.6400395-1113-16SC JohnsonHYDRO
PEROX 3% SOL 1PT29$ 599.6000168-0015-
31CardinalHYDROCORTIS 1% CR 30GM23$ 3,164.4053746-
0137-05SC JohnsonIBUPROFEN 800MG 500S23$
7,593.0440345-0237SC JohnsonINSECT REPELLENT 12S3$
35,811.605229622270JohnsonINTRAOSSEOUS INFUSION
SET8$ 39,450.9200074-7953-09CardinalLACTATED
RINGERS 12X1L21$ 3,980.9000078-0179-
05McKessonLAMISIL 250MG 100S5$ 90,947.4500067-3998-
85McKessonLAMISIL AT 1%CR 24 GM54$ 43,623.8700045-

16. 1525-50McKessonLEVAQUINE 500MG 50S8$
64,509.9450580-0601-50CardinalMOTRIN 100/5 36X120ML3$
265,263.3300074-1212-01CardinalNARCAN 0.4MG/ML
10X1ML19$ 267.0215754-2834BectonNEEDLE HYPO 18GA
100S21$ 1,591.2000067-0214-07CardinalNICOTINE TRANS
14MG 7S39$ 43,347.8400067-0215-07CardinalNICOTINE
TRANS 21MG 7S38$ 30,514.7500067-0213-
07CardinalNICOTINE TRANS 7MG 7S22$
16,332.485408009500BP MedOXIMETER PULSE FINGER3$
38,622.0005132-5199JohnsonOXYGEN USP 1650 GL6$
34,678.254725C69900BectonPAD PREP ALCOHOL 100S33$
2,350.466358011101SC JohnsonPAPER TABLE 18IN 12S20$
1,895.6700378-2020-05McKessonPIROXICAM 20MG 500S8$
129,526.3635963701000OwensPLUG EAR HEAR 50PR7$
164,008.0035963101001OwensPLUG EAR HEAR PROT 20027$
16,301.1030452-1651Hill RomPORTABLE STRETCHER10$
110,888.965568849100JohnsonPOST OP DRESSING CHEST
1017$ 80,032.1615381-4456BP MedPUMP I.V. INFUSION1$
46,682.4015504-6091OwensRESCUE WRAP8$
137,189.5020233005000BP MedRESUSCITATOR HAND
OPR3$ 36,496.6400004-1964-01CardinalROCEPHIN 1GM/VL
10S15$ 40,730.725867095105BectonSCISSORS
BANDAGE7.50"22$ 5,200.004130000D25JohnsonSENSOR
OXYGEN ADUL 24S19$ 34,272.7600409-7983-
09McKessonSOD CHL 0.9% 12X1L26$ 6,519.4800409-7983-

17. 03McKessonSOD CHL 0.9% 24X500ML28$ 9,427.7300338-
0048-04McKessonSOD CHL 0.9%IRRI1LX1220$
3,873.401773093604SiemensSPHYGMOMANOMETER LG22$
6,085.75105520755900OwensSUCTION & IRRIGATION6S17$
41,204.10657A12DSDSBBectonSURG PACK 3S11$
39,893.804509015382OwensTAPE SURG SILK 2IN 6S23$
5,032.0040140-0054JohnsonTIKKA LED HEADLAMP40$
22,272.5020136-6813SC JohnsonTOOTHPASTE COL.851$
36,590.0057664-0377-08CardinalULTRAM 50MG 100S30$
1,983.403583001093OwensUNDERPAD 23X36 150S22$
6,308.466709H140D01BectonURINAL MALE PLST 50S20$
1,071.6400006-4841-00CardinalVAQTA 50 UN/1ML 1S10$
39,559.5274300-0001-58SC JohnsonVISINE-A EYE SOL
15ML19$ 2,388.5400409-7139-09SC JohnsonWATER FOR
IRRIG 1L 12S22$ 2,397.3030362-8299FischerWATER
SAMPLING KIT8$ 44,400.0000173-0135-
55CardinalWELLBUTRIN 150MG 60S11$ 55,656.3200069-
3060-30CardinalZITHROMAX 250MG 30S8$
44,064.0000173-0556-01CardinalZYBAN 150MG 60S SA
KIT12$ 86,445.48