Maplebear Inc.

Jagannath Putrevu

Deepak Tirumalasetty

Site Wang

Mathieu Ripert

Andrew Kane

Bala Subramanian

Houtao Deng

Ji Chen

Zi Wang

Yijia Chen

Mingzhe Zhuang

Reza Faturechi

Kenneth Jason Sanchez

Abhinav Darbari

Kevin Charles Ryan

Eric Hermann

Greg Reda

Haochen Luo

Rishab Saraf

Teodor Lefter

An online concierge identifies orders to shoppers, allowing shoppers to select orders for fulfillment. The online concierge system may generate batches that include multiple orders, allowing a shopper to select a batch to fulfill multiple orders. As orders are continuously being received, delaying identification of orders to shoppers may allow greater batching of orders. To allow greater opportunities for batching, the online concierge system estimates a benefit for delaying identification of an order by different time intervals and predicts an amount of time to fulfill the order. The online concierge system then delays assigning orders for which there is a threshold benefit for delaying and selects a time interval for delaying identification of the order that does not result in greater than a threshold likelihood of a late fulfillment of the order.

Machine learning model for determining a time interval to delay batching decision for an order received by an online concierge system to combine orders while minimizing probability of late fulfillment

An online concierge shopping system fulfills orders using workers who pick items at a warehouse to complete an order and workers to deliver the orders to a customer's location. To optimize the staffing of workers for each task, the system uses a trained model to predict the number of workers needed to achieve an optimal outcome based on an input set of contextual information. The system also schedules specific workers to various shifts using the predicted number of workers needed and then searching a feasibility space for an optimal solution. The trained model may be updated based on performance observations.

Resource planning for an online concierge system based on predictive modeling

An online concierge system receives orders from users identifying items and a warehouses from which the items are obtained. The online concierge system displays groups of one or more orders to shoppers, allowing a shopper to select a group of orders for fulfillment. When selecting groups of orders to display to shoppers, the online concierge system accounts for costs for fulfilling different groups and displays groups having costs satisfying one or more criteria, while maintaining one or more restrictions on times to fulfill orders. The online concierge system trains a selection prediction model to predict an amount of time for a shopper to select a group of orders and determines an estimated fulfillment time for the group from the predicted amount of time. Accounting for the predicted selection time allows the online concierge system to identify a larger number of groups for which costs of fulfillment are determined.

Training a machine learning model to estimate a time for a shopper to select an order for fulfillment and accounting for the estimated time to select when grouping orders

An online concierge system receives two types of orders, one of which requires fulfillment in a specific time interval, while the other can be fulfilled anytime up to a specific time interval. A machine learning model, trained on historical data about available shoppers in discrete time intervals, is used to predict how many shoppers will be available to fulfill orders in each time interval. For each time interval, the system retrieves the relevant orders of both types and creates candidate groups including orders of both types. For each group, the system determines a fulfillment cost based on items in the orders. The candidate group with the lowest cost is selected, and the orders in the selected group are sent to devices of available shoppers in that interval, prompting the shoppers to view and fulfill the orders.

Allocating shoppers and orders for fulfillment by an online concierge system to account for variable numbers of shoppers across different time windows

An online shopping concierge system identifies a set of delivery orders and a set of delivery agents associated with a location. The system allocates the orders among the agents, each agent being allocated at least one order. The system obtains agent progress data describing travel progress of the agents to the location, and order preparation progress data describing progress of preparing the orders for delivery. The system periodically updates the allocation of the orders among the agents based on the agent progress data and the order preparation progress data. This involves re-allocating at least one order to a different delivery agent. When a first agent arrives at the location, the system assigns to the first agent the orders allocated to the first agent. The system then removes the first agent from the set of available delivery agents, and removes the assigned delivery orders from the set of delivery orders.

Optimizing task assignments in a delivery system

An online concierge system allows users to order items within discrete time intervals later than a time when an order was received. The online concierge system allocates a specified percentage of an estimated number of shoppers during a discrete time interval to fulfilling orders received before the discrete time interval. An order may include a flag authorizing flexible fulfillment of the order along with a discrete time interval, which allows the order to be fulfilled earlier than the identified discrete time interval. The online concierge system generates groups of multiple orders authorizing flexible fulfillment and determines a cost for fulfilling different groups of orders. The online concierge system identifies a group of orders authorizing flexible fulfillment having a minimum cost for fulfillment by a shopper, allowing for more allocation of shoppers by enabling grouping of orders identifying different discrete time intervals.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Jagannath Putrevu