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  Method and system for assigning human resources to provide servicesUSPTO Application #: 20060031110Title: Method and system for assigning human resources to provide services Abstract: A system for assigning human resources to service tasks. A long term forecasting module enables one or more users simultaneously working on that module to assign tasks that should be fulfilled in the each specific region, based on analysis of past demand and actual service operations. A mid-term planning module enables one or more users simultaneously working on that module to roughly allocate resources to fulfill actual future tasks and expected task demands. A short-term scheduling module enables one or more users simultaneously working on that module to roughly allocate specific human resources to fulfill actual tasks. A coordination module immediately propagates any change in the parameters of the human resource assignments resulting at any one of the forecasting, planning or scheduling modules to effect the other two modules. An analyzing module repeatedly checks the assignment actual status upon any introduction of an assignment update by the forecasting and planning modules to detect discrepancies and to generate alerts to correct those discrepancies. (end of abstract) Agent: Frommer Lawrence & Haug - New York, NY, US Inventors: Moshe Benbassat, Amit Bendov, Simon Arazi, Michael Karlskind, Israel Beniaminy USPTO Applicaton #: 20060031110 - Class: 705009000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management, Or Cost/price Determination, Automated Electrical Financial Or Business Practice Or Management Arrangement, Operations Research, Allocating Resources Or Scheduling For An Administrative Function, Staff Scheduling Or Task Assignment The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060031110. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to the field of managing service organizations. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and system for human-resource assigning. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] A critical role of process management is ensuring the match of available resources to the tasks the organization is required to perform. In service processes, the main resources are the service professionals (such as field service engineers, help desks or call center agents, insurance assessors, business consultants, etc.) with their available work hours. Other resources include vehicles, tools and equipment, spare parts, office space (e.g., meeting rooms), etc. [0003] The service tasks are usually initiated by customer demands, and typically, they are not predictable or the micro-level. There is no way to predict when a specific customer will call and request a service. [0004] Thus, the service organization faces lie challenge of accurately managing the size, mix of skills and regional allocation of is resources to meet future unknown and unpredictable demands. Erring by allocating too few resources results in failing to meet customer expectations, risking losing customers, and sometimes also requiring the service organization to par contract-specified penalties. Erring by allocating too many resources results in spending excessive money on resources that are not fully utilized. Time cannot be stored, and thus every hour that a resource is not utilized is lost forever (this is in contrast to manufacturing of physical goods, in which extra machine capacity may be used to produce a stock which will be sold later). Obviously, it is not enough to decide on one group of service professionals for the whole organization. The decision needs to pare down to some extent (depending on the organization). For example, setting number of service professionals for each region serviced by the organization, and within a region setting the size of staff in each skill category or product line (e.g. installation experts vs. maintenance experts) in each region. Prior Art Characteristic Work Flow [0005] The four discrete steps that typically characterizes a service-management decision process are: [0006] Analysis: Using statistical and data-analysis methods to project past trends into future expectations of size and types of demands in the regions and time periods of interest. [0007] Forecasting: Combining data from analysis with knowledge of expected events (e.g., product launch) to get a rough prediction of the number and types of demands in the regions and time periods of interest. Unlike analysis, forecasting requires making management decisions when choosing between different possible future scenarios and different possible interpretations of past data [0008] Planning: Capacity assessment and planning of manpower using the forecasted demand data, assessing whether there is a shortage or surplus, and accordingly setting the size and types of staff to meet that demand. For example, in the face of increasing demand, the organization can decide to hire more staff, cross-train existing staff, change overtime and/or vacation policy, or transfer staff from another region. [0009] Scheduling On a short period (daily weekly, etc.) as concrete customer demand becomes clearer, micro-level decisions are made regarding the allocation of specific resources to specific demands. e.g. "Service Engineer E will handle task K at time T". [0010] The service-management decision process of the prior art generally suffers from the following drawbacks: [0011] Each phase must be completed and fully committed before a successive stage begins; [0012] No way to back-track; [0013] Work intensive, which results in the need of excessive manpower. [0014] There are many variations on this framework, wherein certain steps in this description may be merged and some other steps split. For example, the scheduling step may be split into a time-commitment (e.g., saying to customer "someone will be at your site tomorrow between 8:00 and 12:00", without committing to which specific service engineer will handle this task), followed by later refinement specifying all the assignment details. [0015] Generally, different functions handle the different types of planning. For example, a higher-level management typically handles the forecasting and capacity planning, while local dispatchers handle the day-to-day detailed scheduling. [0016] In many cases, the planning steps also cross organization boundaries. For example, a large service organization may use a capacity planting to decide on the amount of outsourcing required, and sign appropriate agreements with smaller organizations. Later, when a specific demand arrives, the primary contractor will assign it to one of the subcontractors, but will not make any decision as to which of the subcontractor's employees (and which other resources) will be assigned to the task. [0017] In the prior art, each of these four steps is managed independently and separately, using different manual or computerized tools, with no integrative method of moving information back and forth between the steps. Once a step is performed, it must be completed across all its dimensions (e.g., before moving into capacity planning, you need to do the forecasting for all regions and all task types), and there is no efficient way of moving back and forth across these steps. In today's world, such a structure is no longer effective, because of factors such as: [0018] Outsourcing is very prevalent: larger organizations are created by consolidating smaller ones, and independent organizations tend to cooperate or be in some "competitive" modes: [0019] The tasks become more and more complex; and [0020] The customers expectations become higher. [0021] These procedures are not a good match for real planning needs. Service organizations do not really save several discrete problems, e.g. one for capacity planning and one for fine-tuned scheduling. Rather, they have a continuum of problems, in which part of the demand is presently managed at a macro level and another par, of the demand is managed at a micro level. [0022] FIG. 1 schematically illustrates an example of the development of a continuous spectrum of decision problems faced by a service organization, according to the prior art. The columns represent the different decision dimensions--e.g. decision on Who performs some action; What action is performed; etc. Each row describes a different type of decision, where the differences are characterized by the specificity or Generality of each part of the decision. For example, on the "Who" dimension, a general decision might affect a whole group of service professionals (such as a whole region) as shown in the first row, while a specific decision might affect only one person. Existing Service Management Products [0023] In the field-service workforce management world, there exist micro-level scheduling products such as: [0024] Service Power (http://www.servicepower.com); [0025] MDSI (http://www.mdsi-advantex.com- ); and others. [0026] In service desk and call-center scheduling, companies such as Blue Pumpkin (http://www.bluepumpkin.com) offers forecasting, staffing, scheduling reporting and monitoring tools, but they emphasize the step-by-step nature of using these tools. [0027] The disciplines of forecasting, planning, and scheduling arose from the manufacturing industries, where they evolved from MRP (Materials Resource Planning) to ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). Optimization of such plans falls under the category of Supply Chain Optimization, and is led by companies such as i2 (http://www.i2.com). Such products optimize and synchronize plans across the different product stages from raw material to delivery ("buy-make-move-store-sell"). [0028] All the methods described above have not yet provided satisfactory solutions to the problem of human resource assigning to provide services. [0029] It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and system for the assigning of human resources to provide services, upon which the performance of all resource planning steps is contiguous. [0030] It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and system for the assigning of human resources to provide services, upon which the refinement of the results of each step is iterative. [0031] It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for the assigning of human resources to provide services, which allows the organization to make as much or as little commitment at each step at high or low levels of any of the hierarchies as required. [0032] It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for the assigning of human resources to provide services, in which the organization is allowed to proceed at different levels for different regions, task types, resource types, etc. [0033] It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a method and system for the assigning of human resources to provide services, which allows viewing and analyzing planning status at any level of detail. Continue reading... Full patent description for Method and system for assigning human resources to provide services Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Method and system for assigning human resources to provide services patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. 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