By Jeremy Stanley, Instacart
Fifteen years ago, Webvan spectacularly failed to bring grocery delivery online. Speculation has been high that the current wave of on-demand grocery delivery startups - and other companies in the on-demand economy - will meet similar fates. Jeremy explains why this time the story will be different—data science is the key. Innovations in mobile applications have paved the way, but significant investments in algorithms to optimize efficiency will drive profitable growth.
12. v
@jeremystan
Forecasting?
Q. How many shoppers?
… next Sunday?
… at 7pm?
… in San Francisco?
… for Potrero Whole Foods?
… for delivery in 2 hours?
f ( prior week active )
→ exponential decay
→ automated outlier removal
→ time series models
→ simulation model
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@jeremystan
Predicting Fulfillment Times
#1
#2 #3
#1 #3 #2
Due#2 Ordered
Shopper 1
Shopper 2
Driver 1
Handoff
Due#1 Ordered
Due#3 Ordered
● Variance is as important as mean → quantile regression
● Gradient boosting machines for complex time & space features
● Update predictions frequently throughout fulfillment
● Scale to millions of predictions per minute (shoppers x orders x sequence)
Delivery TimesPicking Times
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@jeremystan
Optimally Routing Shoppers
1,000 orders
4 orders per trip
x 100 shoppers = 400 million
● Remove constraints, unify objectives
● Recompute every minute, in every market
● Start with greedy heuristics
● Solve sub-problems optimally to benchmark
● Wait to last minute to dispatch
➔ Maximize expected # of items found
➔ Maximize probability of delivering on time
➔ Minimize total time spent delivering
16. @jeremystan
Mission Driven Working GroupsIntegrated
● Aligned with products
● Operate independently
● Cross eng team & org
● Single threaded leader
● All skills necessary
● Open code base
How We Organize
Engineering
ConsumerLogistics
Availability
Fulfillment
Growth
Experience
Orders
1
6
15
Designer
Data Scientist
Engineer
Mobile
ProductAnalyst
Rare
Matrixed
Empowered
17. @jeremystan
Urgency OwnershipTransparency
● Set clear goals
● Be uncomfortable
● Clear accountability
● Measure performance
● Share everything
● Seven different times
Principles
“If everything seems under control, you're
not going fast enough.”
― Mario Andretti