improving impact sourcing via efficient global service...
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Borokhovich, Avhishek Chatterjee, Jason Rogers, Lav R. Varshney, and Sriram Vishwanath
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step_flex, 500 wstep_semiflex, 500 w
step_inflex, 500 wstep_flex, 700 w
step_semiflex, 700 wstep_inflex, 700 w
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step_flex, 500 wstep_semiflex, 500 w
step_inflex, 500 wstep_flex, 700 w
step_semiflex, 700 wstep_inflex, 700 w
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step_flex, 500 wstep_semiflex, 500 w
step_inflex, 500 wstep_flex, 700 w
step_semiflex, 700 wstep_inflex, 700 w
Impact sourcing • Outsourcing tasks to people in underdeveloped regions • Samasource is a leading in impact sourcing • Regions: Haiti, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and India • Since 2008 - $3.5M in wages • More than 30K people lifted out of poverty • 89% of workers pursue additional employment and/or
education after working for Samasource
Customers can get jobs done for 30%-40% less
Samasource provides customers • Project management • Consultation on task design • Connects them with workers Partner agencies in underdeveloped regions provide • Delivery centers (physical facilities) • Stable electricity • Local managers
Work model • Project is split into smaller tasks • Tasks are distributed to global work centers
via web-based platform Samahub
Task has several steps Step has several substeps Substep requires a single skill: Ordering may be imposed among steps
Each worker: • Set of skills, e.g., [2,3,7] • Timezone and daily working hours, e.g., [9-17]
For each substep find workers • one subset - many workers • one step - many workers
STEP_FLEXFor each substep find a worker • one subset - one worker • one step - many workers
STEP_SEMIFLEXFor each step find a worker • one substep - one worker • one step - one worker
STEP_INFLEXTheoretical Results • STEP_FLEX - optimal • STEP_INFLEX – optimal if
steps are inflexible
Making impact sourcing more efficient We improve the efficiency by: • Data-driven scheduling algorithm • Proposing certain organizational flexibility:
Flexible steps, Flexible substeps
Scheduling Algorithm
Task
Step 1 Step 2
Task
Step 1 Step 2
Project
Step 3
Substeps
… …
Workers
Real data (9.3M tasks). Improvements of STEP_FLEX upon current system: • x6.5 for all projects • x8 for real-time projects
Synthetic data. Flexible vs inflexible steps and substeps.
Improving Impact Sourcing via Efficient Global Service Delivery