OUTSOURCING LABORATORY SERVICES FROM A COLOMBIAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMPANY USING THE FITRADEOFF METHOD UNDER MULTIPLE STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT Since most of the studies about outsourcing are focused on mathematical models, this paper seeks to support from theoretical bases the use of partial information to ease the decision-making process; the practical contribution is to apply the FITradeoff method for solving a multicriteria problem of an agricultural research company that seeks to decide about the need to outsource the operation in case to overhead the limited capacity of the analysis services. After the FITradeoff method was applied to elicit preferences from each decision-maker (DM), the results show whether or not it would be feasible to outsource a given service, and what the most promising options are. The method required the DMs to answer in less time only a few questions, which avoided placing an unnecessary cognitive burden on them and proved to be useful in assisting DMs in the decision-making.

摘要 鉴于当前绝大多数外包相关研究均聚焦于数学模型，本文旨在依托理论基础，论证部分信息在简化决策流程中的应用价值。本研究的实践贡献在于，将FITradeoff方法（FITradeoff）应用于某农业科研企业的多准则决策问题：该企业因分析服务能力有限、需超负荷运转，故需决策是否将相关业务外包。通过FITradeoff方法获取每位决策者（Decision-Maker，DM）的偏好信息后，研究结果可明确特定服务外包的可行性，并筛选出最具潜力的外包方案。该方法仅需决策者花费少量时间作答有限问题，避免了不必要的认知负荷，且经证实可有效辅助决策者完成决策工作。