Bir insani yardım organizasyounda gönüllülerin işlere atanması için çok amaçlı programlama modeli
Multi-purpose programming model for assigning volunteers to tasks in a humanitarian relief organization
Yazar: HARUN BÜYÜKÇOLAK
Danışman: YRD. DOÇ. DR. ÖZGÜR KABAK
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi / Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü / Endüstri Mühendisliği Ana Bilim Dalı / Endüstri Mühendisliği Bilim Dalı
Derece: Yüksek Lisans, 2018
Konu: Endüstri ve Endüstri Mühendisliği = Industrial and Industrial Engineering

Özet:
İnsani yardım kuruluşlarının genel çalışma prensibinde mümkün mertebe eldeki görevlerin gönüllüler aracılığıyla yürütülmesi esas olduğundan, gönüllülük önemli bir kavram olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Gönüllülük esasına dayalı çalışmalar ile belli bir bedel karşılığında yapılan çalışmalar arasında bir takım motivasyon farklılıkları bulunmaktadır. Bu yüzden, kâr amacı güden şirketler için kurgulanan maliyet minimizasyonu/kar maksimizasyonu yapısı gönüllü kuruluşlar ile örtüşmemektedir. İnsani yardım kuruluşlarının gönüllü çalışmalarını devam ettirebilmeleri ancak gönüllülerin tercihlerine önceleyerek ve gönüllülerin isteklerini tatmin ederek mümkün olmaktadır. Bunun yanında insani yardım kuruluşlarının göz önünde bulundurması gereken diğer bir nokta da bağışçılarına karşı üstlendiği sorumluluklardır. Sadece gönüllülerin tercihlerine yoğunlaşılması organizasyonun yürüttüğü çalışmaların bitmemesi riskini doğururken, sadece işlerin bitmesine odaklanılması ise ekseriyetle gönüllülerin istemedikleri işleri alabilmelerine ya da onlara fazla yüklenilmesine sebebiyet verebilmektedir. Bunun haricinde, gönüllü planlamasında dikkat edilmesi gereken başka bazı noktalar da bulunmaktadır. Küçük/orta çaptaki insani yardım kuruluşlarında gerek maddi kısıtlar, gerekse de organizasyonel yapının yetersizliği sebebiyle farklı tipteki gönüllülük işlerinin aynı yapıda planlanması gerekmektedir. Burada en büyük sorun, zamandan bağımsız ve bireysel yürütülebilecek işlerle belli bir zamanı olan, bölünemeyen ve takım halinde yürütülmesi gereken işleri aynı yapı içinde planlamaktır. Gönüllü planlamada dikkat edilmesi gereken ve yeni sayılabilecek bir diğer konu da uluslararası insani yardım kuruluşlarında gönüllülerin birçok farklı ülkeden ve vatandaşlık statüsünden olabilmesidir. Bu bağlamda, bu kurumların gönüllülerinin bir kısmını yabancı gönüllüler (yardım bölgesi gönüllüleri) ve mülteciler oluşturmaktadır. 
Gönüllü tercihlerinin ve kurum tercihlerinin aynı anda optimize edilebilmesi için bu çalışmada çok amaçlı programlama modeli oluşturulmuştur. Oluşturulan bu çok amaçlı programlama modeli ağırlıklı toplam yöntemi ile çözülmüştür. Bunun tercih edilmesinin sebebi, iki amaç fonksiyonunu kendi içinde ağırlıklandırarak organizasyonun o planlama dönemindeki ihtiyacına göre amaçlardan birine ağırlık verebilmesini sağlamaktır. Böylelikle, proje takvimlerinin sıkıştığı dönemlerde işlerin bitmesine ağırlık verilebileceği gibi, işlerin rahat olduğu dönemlerde ise gönüllü tercihleri ön plana çıkarılabilecektir. Literatürde çok amaçlı programlama modelini gönüllü yönetiminde kullanan az sayıda çalışma bulunmaktadır. Bu makalede kurgulanan modelin daha önceki modellerden farklı olduğu noktalardan biri, modele yerel çalışan ve mülteci çalışan kavramının eklenmiş olmasıdır. Bazı işlerde mülteci ve yerel çalışanların tercih edilmesi kuruma verimlilik açısından bir takım avantajlar sağlamaktadır. Mültecilerin organizasyon içinde daha etkin kullanılması, içinde bulundukları ortama daha hızlı bir şekilde alışmalarını sağladığından, mülteci gönüllünün motivasyonu daha yüksek olabilmektedir. Ayrıyeten, mültecinin terk ettiği bölgeye bir yardım söz konusu olduğunda, onun tercih edilmesi yardım çalışmalarını kolaylaştırmaktadır. Yerel çalışanların tercih edilmesi ise maliyetlerin dolaylı bir şekilde minimize edilmesini ve sahada daha etkin bir şekilde işlerin yürütülmesini sağlamaktadır. Modelin kendinden önceki modellerden farklılaştığı diğer bir nokta ise gönüllülerin yürüteceği farklı tipteki işlerin aynı yapı içinde yönetilebilmesidir. Daha önceki çalışmalarda ya zaman ve mekâna bağlı işler için ya da bu kısıtların olmadığı işler için model kurgulanmıştır. Bu çalışmada farklı karakteristiğe sahip bu işlerin birlikte yönetilmesi sağlanmıştır. Farklı yapıdaki bu işlerin birbirlerine olan etkisi de göz önüne alınmış ve buna uygun olarak modele yeni kısıtlar eklenmiştir.

Abstract:
Volunteering is an important concept since the humanitarian aid organizations carry out their tasks through volunteers as much as possible as a general working principle. There are a number of motivational differences between non-profit volunteering works and for-profit works. The cost minimization / profit maximization modelling structure for profit-oriented companies does not suit the voluntary organizations. For non-profit organizations, volunteer preferences are a very important concept in terms of volunteering motivations, such that it is only possible for humanitarian organizations to continue their voluntary work by prioritizing the volunteers 'preferences and satisfying the volunteers' wishes. Another point that humanitarian organizations need to consider is their responsibility towards their donors. Focusing only on preferences of the organization can cause volunteers to take on tasks that they do not prefer much, or cause to overload them, while focusing solely on the volunteer preferences can cause the works leave incomplete for long times. Apart from this basic point, there are some other points need to be considered for the voluntary planning. Due to financial constraints and inadequacy of organizational structure in small / medium sized humanitarian organizations, different types of voluntary work must be planned in the same structure. The biggest problem here is to plan jobs that can be carried out individually and are independent from time and space constraints and jobs that have a certain time constraint and cannot be divided into smaller parts and should be carried out in teams in the same structure. Another issue that needs to be considered in voluntary planning is that volunteers in international humanitarian organizations can be from many different countries and citizenship status. In this context, some of the volunteers of these institutions are foreign volunteers (volunteers from aid regions) and refugees. From 2006 till now, yearly money spending for people in need around the world increased four times and number of people benefited from these aids tripled. Increase in demand for aids brings about increase in supply. Now, there are much more charity organizations around the world in various sizes and budgets. Same situation applies in Turkey as well. Because of its proximity to political crisis areas and war zones in middle-east, there are immense refugee population in Turkey and charities mostly aiming these people in their campaigns.
As expressed previously, there are two main objectives of the humanitarian charity organizations. One of them is to maximize the retention of the volunteers or in other words maximizing their preferences and the other one is maximizing the completion of the valuable works of the charity organization. In order to optimize voluntary choices and institutional preferences, a multi criteria programming model was designed. This generated multi criteria programming model is solved by weighted sum solution method. The reason for this preference is to weight the objective functions within themselves so that the organization can easily give weight to the goals according to its needs during that planning period. In this way, finishing the projects/jobs can be emphasized during the periods of tightness, while volunteer preferences can be foregrounded when the calendar is not tight. Few studies in the literature use the multi-criteria programming model in volunteer management operations. One point which this model differs from the previous models is that the model is having the concept of preference of local and refugee employees as per to necessity of the situation. The preference of refugees and local employees in some tasks provides the humanitarian organization with some advantages in terms of efficiency. Motivation of the refugee volunteers may be higher and they could be more eager and applicant to the proposed tasks since when the refugees are preferred they could be get accustomed to their new environment quickly. In addition, when it comes to helping the area where the refugees have left, preferring of them makes the aid work easier. The preference of the local employees ensures that costs are minimized indirectly and jobs are carried out more effectively in the field. Another point that the model differs from previous models is that the different types of jobs to be carried out by the volunteers can be managed in the same structure. In the previous studies, some models were set up for jobs having some time and space constraints, or for jobs having none of these constraints. In this study, it was ensured that both jobs types with different characteristics were managed together. The influence of these different type of works on each other has also been considered and new constraints have been added to the model accordingly. 
In the introduction part of this study, general information was presented related with humanitarian aid field. The topics covered in this first section are the recent increase in the demand of humanitarian work all around the world, overall humanitarian organization condition in Turkey, impact of recent developments in information technology field to the humanitarian aid studies and increase of refugee population in all around the world and its impact to humanitarian aid works.
In literature review part, two main topics of this study were discussed. First one is the previous multi-criteria volunteering assignment models and the second one is the solution methods of the multi-criteria volunteer assignment problems. Regarding modeling and its solutions, it was expressed that there are not many studies about this subject in the literature. Then, existing couple of studies so far were explained in detail. Addition to this, all the known multi criteria solution methods performed in these studies were listed and discussed in terms of application, advantages and disadvantages. 
After literature review, volunteering concept was discussed in section three. To better understand the dynamics of the model presented in here it is necessary to know the sociological structure and background of the volunteering. Therefore, in the context of volunteering, meaning and the conceptual definition of volunteering, motivations behind the volunteering, differences of salaried laboring and volunteering laboring were discussed. Then one the foremost volunteering issue, which is volunteering retention, was studied in detail. In this part, topics like retention concept and its impact, why retention is important, common retention methods, volunteer preferences as retention method and subsequently, choosing the right volunteers for the right job and voluntary works concept were studied. 
In the planning part, which is section four of this study, some topics like necessity of planning, setting of the planning period, pre-planning tasks details and planning tasks details were discussed. In this study, planning is the phase which all the necessary data were produced for the model. After the completion of planning phase, task preference and suitability matrix of the volunteers would be produced along with other data like locality and immigrancy indexes, task weights, overlap matrix, cost matrix and so on. 
In section five, studied multi-criteria assignment model was proposed. Initially, assumptions of the model were expressed. Then, objective functions, data sets, decision variables, parameters and the formulation of the model were presented. Thereafter, five-phased weighed sum solution method was introduced. In this solution method, first objective function was solved separately and then second objective function was solved separately. For each objective, solved function was turned into a constraint in the model and the other objective was solved as per to this new constraint respectively. After the ranges of the solution space was become clear to us, scalarization and weighting process was applied. To see the performance of the proposed model, a small problem was generated and all steps were applied. Unfortunately, since there is no contradictory situation between objective functions, last step became idle and the optimum solution was already attained in the previous steps. From this small example, it is understood that for fully investigate the model performance more complex problem with having contradictory situation between its objective functions is required. 
In section six, the model was implemented with a more complex and real-like data for an existent charity organization. In this section, initially the organization worked with and taken support in this study was introduced. Then, pre-planning and planning data were generated. These are tasks list of studied planning period, features of the tasks matrix, volunteers and their features matrix, task preferences and suitability matrices, cost matrix of volunteer assignment to various tasks, matrix for avoidance of tasks overlap, refugee and locality statue weight matrix. Subsequently, model was solved in five phases in compliance with the proposed model part. In this real-like data, inputs for objective functions were chosen as contradictory between each other and all the five steps were applied successfully. Immediately after, solution was discussed in terms of whether the model is working logically and meeting the expectation. Following to this evaluation, sensitivity analysis was performed with nine scenarios. In this scenarios, various constraints and parameters were altered and the impacts of these alterations to the general solution were discussed.
In section seven, how this study could be developed further was discussed in the first place. Then the application fields were presented and the model was briefly summarized.