Method and System for Identifying and Visualizing Work Transfers Using Financial Data
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsJeanette L. Blomberg, Neil H.A. Boyette, Anca A. Chandra, Sechan Oh, H. Raymond Strong, JR.
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Abstract
Disclosed are methods and systems for identifying and visualizing the patterns of work transfers for service delivery using financial data. Within a service firm, work is often transferred from one delivery center to another, which results in additional costs and delays in service delivery. To control unnecessary work transfers, sustained patterns of work transfer are identified so that steps can be taken to limit their occurrence. The disclosed methods and systems analyze the relations among the costs transferred from one location to another.
Claims16
A method for discovering and reducing multi-hop work transfers from accounting information, comprising:
- representing a time series of aggregate amounts of reported transfers between each directional pair of locations, each aggregate amount corresponding to a given directional location pair and representing an aggregate amount of work transferred between said given directional location pair during a given time period;
- performing a regression analysis on first and second aggregate amounts for corresponding time periods where the receiving location of the first amount and the sending location of the second amount are the same;
- indicating the presence of a multi-hop transfer when said regression analysis passes a significance test;
- and
- measuring the multi-hop transfer by said regression analysis.
A method for identifying and visualizing work transfers originating at location A and transferred to location C via location B, said method comprising:
- identifying, from financial data, c(A,B,t) and c(B,C,t) for every time period t of interest, where c(A,B,t) represents amount of work transferred from A to B during said time period t and c(B,C,t) represents amount of work transferred from B to C during said time period t;
- conducting a regression test on c(A,B,t) and c(B,C,t) and identifying a regression coefficient;
- identifying repeated work transfer from location A to location C via location B when said regression coefficient exceeds a pre-determined threshold;
- and
- graphically representing said identified repeated work transfer from location A to location C via location B.
A method for identifying and visualizing work transfers originating at location A and transferred to location C via location B with time delay, said method comprising:
- identifying, from financial data, c(A,B,t) and c(B,C,t+Δ), where location B receives work from location A at time t and transfers the work to location C at time t+Δ, where c(A,B,t) and c(B,C,t+Δ) represent amounts of work transferred from A to B and from B to C, respectively;
- conducting a regression test on c(A,B,t) and c(B,C,t+Δ) for a range of values of Δ and identifying the largest regression coefficient;
- identifying repeated work transfer from location A to location C via location B with time-delay when said largest regression coefficient exceeds a pre-determined threshold;
- and
- graphically representing said identified repeated work transfer from location A to location C via location B.
An article of manufacture having a non-transitory computer usable medium having computer usable program code for identifying and visualizing work transfers originating at location A and transferred to location C via location B, said non-transitory computer usable medium comprising:
- computer readable program code identifying, from financial data, c(A,B,t) and c(B,C,t) for every time period t of interest, where c(A,B,t) represents amount of work transferred from A to B during said time period t and c(B,C,t) represents amount of work transferred from B to C during said time period t;
- computer readable program code conducting a regression test on c(A,B,t) and c(B,C,t) and identifying a regression coefficient;
- computer readable program code identifying repeated work transfer from location A to location C via location B when said regression coefficient exceeds a pre-determined threshold;
- and
- computer readable program code graphically representing said identified repeated work transfer from location A to location C via location B.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.