Big data is a term that describes large, hard-to-manage volumes of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundate businesses and government agencies on a day-to-day basis. Your viewing habits on Netflix generate recommendations. Your buying decisions on Amazon predict items you might want to add to your cart. Even the information your car’s sensors gather about its use and performance can be used to indicate maintenance requirements.
Outside of retail use, much of the information collected goes mostly unused. Mike Bieri, Senior Vice President of Huntsville Operations at Intuitive Research and Technology Company (INTUITIVEⓇ), estimates that about 60% of data collected goes unused.
“The pervasive use of sensors, for example, means large amounts of data are being collected and stored,” said Bieri. “So, we have enormous amounts of data, but many companies do nothing with it because they don’t know if it’s relevant or they’re only looking for specific ‘known’ relationships in the data.”
But it’s not just the type or amount of data that’s important – as Bieri says – it’s what organizations do with the data that matters. Big data can be analyzed for insights that reveal patterns and relationships, to improve strategic decision making.
Using the hypothesis that there is more data that could be mined, INTUITIVE develops algorithms to harvest data and find relationships that can be used to take action. For INTUITIVE, managing big data for the U.S. Department of Defense, defense contractors and even commercial sectors means uncovering data relationships that can impact key areas of operation and performance.
“These tools can help analysts make more informed determinations of performance capabilities or sustainment decisions based on collected maintenance data,” said Bieri. “That’s our focus area in present efforts for the DoD—we believe this will lead to more efficient and useful information that can be used to make decisions about modernization or sustainment of equipment in the field.”
Supply Chain Management
Scott Moyers, Program Manager at INTUITIVE, works with multiple data sets, primarily from the government, merging to find commonality between them to give holistic solutions.
“We work mostly with maintenance and supply databases,” says Moyers. “We merge the data to identify relationships that affect each other and quantify how equipment use affects supply and logistics.”
Evaluating data relationships allows Moyers to identify the lack or oversupply of materials, people, equipment, and skill sets.
“I like to compare it to grocery shopping, where you want to make sure you buy what you need but not more than you can use,” said Moyers. “With the data relationships we identify between equipment use and military readiness, we can predict what equipment we need to buy and when we need it. So we don’t overbuy or underbuy; we can be good stewards of the government’s money.”
Maintenance and Readiness
The constant influx of data surrounding equipment use and maintenance information allows Moyers and his team to clearly see the correlation between how equipment is used and how it is maintained.
“When we look closely at how a piece of equipment is used, we can see how that relates to how frequently it should be maintained and what type of maintenance might be needed,” said Moyers. “For example, we know that highway miles are more demanding on a vehicle than driving short trips around town. By tracking this type of data, we can see how use impacts maintenance requirements and adjust maintenance accordingly. This is important because maintenance is critical to readiness.”
Experience and Data
Monitoring trends and recognizing patterns is a key attribute of successful supply chain management, but until the advent of big data, that part of the process was largely anecdotal. Bieri says even with big data, human evaluation is still a key part of the process.
“Artificial intelligence looks for relationships in the data that people can’t see,” said Bieri. “Humans can’t process the enormous amount of data analyzed by these algorithms, but then, the algorithm can’t see the meaning behind those relationships.”
Bieri adds that INTUITIVE specifically leaves its algorithms more generic at this stage, allowing the system to locate any correlations that are identified by the algorithms. It’s then up to the analysts to look at those relationships, see why they exist, whether they make sense, and what they may indicate about the data sets themselves.
“It’s important for us to add these data sets to the physical observations of experienced personnel,” said Bieri. “For example, data analysts and aerodynamic engineers look for different things, and we can leverage both the data and the expertise to change and improve processes and outcomes.”
Expertise and Analytics
“Experience and education are valuable resources amid the current surge of big data applications and analytics,” said Moyers. “At INTUITIVE, we have the computing speed at our fingertips, plus a new generation of software engineers and programmers who are so much more advanced and more available. They’re bringing great ideas on how to build algorithms, plus they can analyze the data to make sure the answers make sense and take on the difficult, deep dive into the data.”
Because personal field experience can create a bit of a blind spot when it comes to data correlations, those deep analytical dives can provide a more meaningful view than what is just on the surface, according to Bieri.
“We expect that, as we continue to identify useful correlations in client data, we will create increasingly specific algorithms to dig even deeper,” said Bieri. “The volume, velocity, and variety of data we have available means we have a great deal more to learn about potential relationships and how to leverage them going forward.”
ABOUT INTUITIVE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION:
INTUITIVE® is an aerospace engineering and analysis firm headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama that provides production support, software and systems engineering, programmatic support, product development, rapid prototyping, and technology management to the Department of Defense, other State and Federal Government agencies, and commercial companies. Our approach couples the latest technology with engineering expertise, analytical proficiency, and keen managerial oversight. From design through production to sustainment, we proudly provide management and technical solutions throughout all phases of the system’s life cycle.