Gian Carlo Torres

118
Assignment 1
Data Science and Industrial Engineering

I. Background

Industrial Engineering has been in the field for a long time which is concerned with
optimizing complex processes and systems involved in major engineering and
manufacturing. They have to utilize employees, money, information, materials, equipment
and knowledge to ensure that every process involved in the particular area in which they are
operating can achieve its full potential (Schmidt et al., 2022).

Data is one of the most crucial assets for any organization. From healthcare to financial
firms, every industry has begun to recognize the need for data-driven business operations.
As such, the demand for highly skilled data scientists is on the rise. With the increase in
competition between organizations, companies are ready to pay handsome salaries for the
field’s best talents. If you are looking for the top data science companies to work for, here are
some of the best ones out there.

Data Science on the other hand was first used during the 1980’s. Data science aims to
extract valuable and usable insights from both structured and unstructured data. It’s an
interdisciplinary field which uses statistics and informatics to understand a variety of different
things. It encompasses things like audio, video, spreadsheets, text and various other
datasets. When you think about just how much data you have access to even just from your
own personal computer, big data might sound like something that’s impossible to control and
utilize (Schimdt et al., 2022).

The emerging field of data science has attracted the attention of academia and industry
over the past years. Its promise of creating competitive advantage from data is appealing to
all vital sectors of the economy, and its focus on data processing and information extraction
is reviving classical techniques in statistics, operations research and computer science.
Hence, Data Science is considered by some as a new discipline and by others as a
modernised packaging of known techniques in light of recent advances in information and
computer technology. In this work, the authors endeavour to unveil the links between the
traditional field of industrial engineering (IE) and the emerging field of Data Science in an
attempt to identify the boundaries of each and their implications on the training, education
and curriculum development in IE. Based on the literature and on the analysis of leading IE
programmes, the authors find that DA is a building block of traditional and modern IE
programmes, albeit varying emphasis on the techniques presented and the application areas
studied (Elhedhli et al., 2021).

Data Science has wide applications in banking, finance, health care, fraud detection,
marketing, etc. organizations can use Data Science to measure, track and record the
performance of the companies and make decisions based on solid evidence. In addition, top
Data Science companies use complex algorithms and machine learning to solve problems or
market their product better to consumers.
II. Data Science in Industrial Engineering
Data science is dominating most industries today, as most of them operate on the
basis of data. It has revolutionized the way data is perceived by different industries.
Considering the vast field of data science and its diverse applications, it is only expected that
it will find its sweet spot in manufacturing too. The manufacturing industry is undergoing a
huge transformation supported by today’s digital age that requires greater agility for the
customers, business partners, and suppliers. The increasing scale and speed can be
challenging for manufacturers, and this is where data science comes in.

The way data science is applied in manufacturing is unique in certain ways,

considering the specific requirements of the field. It is primarily used to provide valuable
insights to the manufacturers aiming at profit maximization, risk minimization, and
productivity assessments.

In order to extract information from big data, there is a common process known as
‘mining’. This basically just means sifting through huge amounts of data, and these days it
often requires the usage of artificial intelligence. Industrial engineers can garner huge
insights through data mining which will be very valuable when perfecting a complex process.
It’s especially useful for the discovery of defects and inconsistencies in manufacturing.
Problems would have often flown under the radar due to the fact that developing a very
complex system generates a massive amount of data and outdated systems wouldn’t be up
to the task of processing it all. So, things would have been missed. There’s also transparency
to consider here, because IE involves the organization of manpower too as well as ensuring
that everyone important involved in a particular project has access to as much information as
they need. It can be difficult to maintain a level of transparency and ensure that everybody
can be content in the knowledge that they can trust each other. If you make it clear that big
data mining will be a part of your process, then stakeholders can be confident that their
access to data won’t be limited.

In the last decade manufacturing experienced a shift towards digitalization. Cost

decrease of sensors, wireless connectivity, and the opportunity to store big amounts of data
pushed a process towards a next generation of IT industry. Manufacturing now has the
opportunity to gather large quantities of data, coming from different areas, such as product
and process design, assembly, material planning, quality control, scheduling, maintenance,
fault detection and cover all the product life cycle phases. The extraction of value from data is
a new challenge that companies are now experiencing. Therefore, the need for analytical
information system is growing, in order to explore datasets and discover useful and often
hidden information. Data Science has been helpful to Industrial Engineering as it is able to
analyze huge amount of data (Cattaneo et al., 2018).

The collection of data from operators and machines is used to create a set of KPIs or
Key Performance Indicators like Overall Equipment Effectiveness or OEE. This enables a
root cause analysis of scrap and downtime driven by data. Data science is hence utilized to
offer a proactive and responsive approach to machine maintenance and optimization. The
ability to generate a quicker response to issues has a direct impact on productivity and costly
downtime. The creation of a predictive model that monitors machine performance and
downtime can then be used to anticipate the nature of yield gains, the impact of any external
changes, scrap reduction, and quality. This will, in turn, help manufacturers discover new
methods and ways to approach quality improvement and cost management

Production in modern manufacturing has very few critical cells or machines to depend
on. The data used for real-time monitoring can be further analyzed to prevent machine failure
and improve asset management. Data scientists make use of the knowledge of the machine
and take note of the reasons why it may fail in order to make these predictions. Process data
indicating varied vibration and temperature is used in big data manufacturing to predict the
failure of a machine beforehand. Tracing the deviations against the settings for optimum
performance of machines, engineers can be signaled to take preventive measures when
required creating the possibility for manufacturers to avoid critical failure.

Numerous criteria and factors have to be taken into account when determining the cost
of a product. Each stage involved in the process of manufacturing and selling the item
counts. The final price of the product is an end result of taking into account the cost of each
element, starting from the raw material to the distribution costs. But that is not all, for a
product to be saleable, even the customer has to find the price reasonable. This is the
expertise of price optimization where the trick is to find the best possible quotation
acceptable to and beneficial for both the manufacturer and the customer. Modern solutions
for price optimization is modelled around profit maximization and product efficiency. Data
science uses tools for aggregation and analysis of data, including both pricing and cost from
internal sources and market competitors to extract optimized price variants. The market
competition, in combination with the change and fluctuations in customer needs and
preferences around the world, makes data science a valuable tool in manufacturing.

The management of supply chain risk is not an easy feat to achieve. The complexity
and unpredictability of this arena make it a job more suitable for the data scientists to be
handled. Working with inputs ranging from fuel and shipping costs, pricing differences,
market scarcity and tariffs to local weather is the domain of data science by simply converting
them into data points. Using the right data science model, market changes can be anticipated
to minimize risk, avoid unnecessary expenses and result in savings. Another term used for
supply chains is value chains and it is not without a reason. It works as a clockwork system
that includes all the manufacturers of different parts and materials working to deliver required
elements to assembly plants. This relationship of different elements at various stages of
production emanating from a certain manufacturer and being produced at a certain place,
coming together to form the final product is complex. Simple contingencies like scarcity of
material or late deliveries can be costly mistakes in the production process. Data scientists
analyze and predict patterns of inputs and outputs to minimize risks and ensure a smooth-
running system.

Demand forecasting involves massive work for the specialists and accountants as it
requires analysis of big data aimed at efficient decision making. The strong relation it shares
with inventory management makes the two fields literally depend on the other for smooth
functioning. An insight into their interrelation can be drawn from the fact that it is the data
from the supply chains that are utilized in demand forecasting. Demand forecasting is crucial
to the efficient management of the production system for a manufacturer. The opportunity to
control the inventory simply by analyzing data reduces the cost incurred in storing items you
 may never need. The beauty of application in data science in demand forecasting is that the
data input can be continually updated (Sharma, 2022).

III. Companies and Data Science

IBM is an American multinational technology corporation with its headquarters in
Armonk, New York. With its presence in and operations in over 171 countries, it is one of the
world’s largest employers in the world. Unused data is one of the biggest challenges in
scaling AI-powered decision-making. IBM Cloud Pak for Data platform enables organizations
to connect and access the data silos without moving them. It simplifies data access by
automatically discovering and curating them to deliver actionable knowledge access to its
users.

Wipro is known for its information technology, consulting, and business process
services. It was founded on 29 December 1945 and has its headquarters in Bangalore, India.
With over 221,000 employees, it is ranked the 9th largest employer in India. Wipro makes an
immense effort to expose its employees to hackathons and summits, which enables their
data science professionals to interact with the top experts in the industry. They also
encourage the development of their data science professionals through courses in
collaboration with the best universities. Wipro’s IQNxt framework provides organizations with
a detailed assessment of data, a data governance setup, and a customized implementation
roadmap. The solution is easy to deploy and enables organizations to save up to 30% in
costs with a 93% improvement in data quality.

Cloudera is a software development company that provides enterprise data cloud

which is accessible via a subscription fee. The Cloudera platform is built on open source
technology and uses data analytics and machine learning to yield insights from data. It works
across hybrid, multi-cloud, and on-premises architecture. CDP Private Cloud is a hybrid data
platform that delivers powerful transactional, analytics, and machine learning workloads. It
also provides the option of traditional or elastic analytics and scalable object storage. It
enables data scientists with true data and workload mobility by providing them with
consistent data security and governance across all public and private clouds. Cloudera
Operational Database is an operational database that enables developers to quickly build
future-proof applications that can handle data evolution over time. It also automates and
simplifies database management as well as seamless integrations with other Cloudera data
platform services.

Splunk is the world’s first data-to-everything platform that produces software for
searching, monitoring, and analyzing machine-generated data through a web-style interface.
Splunk was founded in 2003 and has its headquarters in San Francisco, California, and has
23 offices worldwide. Splunk has been recognized as a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic
Quadrant for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) for over 8 years now.
Splunk Insights is an analytics tool that can assess and investigate potential threats by
ingesting event logs from multiple sources. It is especially useful and targeted toward smaller
organizations like schools and universities.

Numerator is a data and tech company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The

company is known for its innovative market research techniques which blend proprietary data
with advanced technology to create unique insights. The majority of the Fortune 100
companies in the world are clients of Numerator. Numerator’s purchase blend audience
targeting enables organizations to create niche targets by using first-party purchase data
through intelligent modeling. This helps build a target audience more efficiently and allows
advertisers to focus specifically on them. Numerator allows on-demand access to shopper
data which is updated on a daily basis. This helps to quickly answer business questions that
legacy solutions are not able to. Organizations are then able to influence shopper behavior
and grow their brand with better insights (Duggal, 2022).

Oil giant Shell, for instance, used data science to anticipate machine failure at facilities
across the world. Agricultural company Cargill developed a mobile data-tracking app that
helps shrimp farmers reduce mortality rates. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group analyzed data with
machine learning to glean more details about beverage sales and vendors. And freight
company Pitt Ohio used historical data and predictive analytics to estimate delivery time with
99 percent accuracy.
References:

Cattaneo, L., Fumagalli, L., Macchi, M., & Negri, E. (2018, September 6). Clarifying data
analytics concepts for industrial engineering. IFAC-PapersOnLine. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405896318315672

Duggal, N. (2022). Top 5 data science companies to work for in 2022: Simplilearn.
Simplilearn.com. Retrieved from https://www.simplilearn.com/top-data-science-
companies-article

Elhedhli, S., Omar, M., & Bouabid, A. (2021). Data Analytics - IS IT industrial engineering
reborn? - wiete. Data Science- is it industrial engineering reborn? Retrieved from
http://www.wiete.com.au/journals/GJEE/Publish/vol23no1/02-Bouabid-A.pdf

Schmidt, A., Barbaro, A. C., & Viorel, P. (2022, May 24). Data Science in Industrial
Engineering. IIoT World. Retrieved from
https://www.iiot-world.com/industrial-iot/connected-industry/data-science-in-industrial-
engineering/

Sharma, R. (2022). 8 interesting data science applications in manufacturing industry [2022].

Retrieved from https://www.upgrad.com/blog/data-science-applications-in-manufacturing-
industry/