The launch of the Data Science department

Data Science – Driving Smarter Decisions

Data is at the heart of everything we do here at Detectronic, so we’re really proud to announce the launch of a brand new department dedicated to the pursuit of using that data to drive smarter decisions across the company: welcome to the Detectronic Data Science department!

Led by Judith Elgie, Head of Data Science, and supported by Emmanuel Nwosu, Senior Data Engineer, and Aqib Ali, Data Analyst, the team has been working alongside their peers in the Detectronic Data Centre and their technical colleagues in R&D since last December.

We caught up with our Product & Data Director, Gavin Wagstaff, to find out more.

Where does the Data Science department sit within Detectronic?

The R&D team and the Data Science team are already working hand-in-hand, together, for the benefit of the wider business. Data is extremely valuable for everyone at Detectronic and, as we progress with our long-term data strategy, everyone within the company from finance and operations to field maintenance and marketing will see its benefit.

What will you use the data for?

Using data, good data, we can improve and further enhance all our existing products. At the same time, we can use the relevant data to inform our new product development as we continue to build our reputation as a global leader in water monitoring innovation.

How will the Data Science team further enhance the data being gathered?

Detectronic has grown rapidly over the last five years and, whilst spreadsheets have their place, we now need to review and refine our processes to ensure we can harness as many data opportunities as possible.

With over 30,000 devices installed across the UK, we now have 21.5 million datapoints coming through our data centre every single day. That’s not quite big data just yet but is certainly on its way and currently that data is fragmented and disparate. We need to take it to the next level and, to achieve and succeed at this, we need to create our own central nucleus of data, an overarching interface that unites data and insight. This is where Emmanuel and Aqib and their specific skills come in.

Emmanual and Aqib are extracting all the data they possibly can from a variety of sources including manufacturing, testing, maintenance and even end-of-life devices. They will then analyse that data and turn it into something that we can utilise to improve our products and their performance.

How will the data actually be used for improvement?

As I mentioned earlier, in its raw format, data isn’t much use to anyone. However, once it’s been processed by experts like Emmanual and Aqib and unpicked by a specialist like Judith, it becomes extremely valuable to everyone across the business. For example, Judith can use it to develop code and algorithms to feed into the software teams to build apps or create programs.

When we are at the next level, we can boost our machine learning capabilities and maximise AI opportunities. This will enable us to better understand trends, product life span, support bespoke predictive maintenance plans for clients and so much more.

Here’s an example of how we can use the data. We know that many variants can affect our devices. From poor signal to where they’re actually installed, some monitors have to work harder than others and, as such, may only have a lifespan of three years. We’re interrogating the data and asking: how can we improve this? Could the answer be adaptive dial-ins? Quite possibly but the data will enable us to confirm or deny this and inform indisputable next steps.

What does the future look like for the Data Science Department?

Still in its infancy, the department is in discovery phase at present, but it’s already set to grow as we welcome Hannah Macbryde in March. A talented front-end developer, Hannah will be focusing on building a highly intuitive user interface for internal use and, hopefully, for external use too at some point in the future.

In conclusion

There is huge potential for not only Detectronic, but all our clients to benefit immensely from the work that the Data Science team are delivering. Our focus is on optimising these three key areas:

• Connection data
• No. of data points delivered
• Quality of data delivered

I for one am extremely optimistic and excited about the direction in which data is already taking us and I look forward to sharing further updates about this fascinating department and its work over the coming months!