Wildfire spread prediction
WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature)
Problem
- Wildfires can pose threats to ecosystems throughout the world, but in South America, the effects of deforestation can be particularly severe.
organizations like WWF Bolivia and FAN constantly seek to improve their threat-modelling capabilities.
Solution
- Unit8 joined forces with WWF and Bolivian FAN NGO to leverage technology to help predict the spread of wildfires
Our key objective was to identify and implement technological solutions that could supplement the existing work of WWF and FAN in the detection, modeling, and elimination of wildfire threats.
Impact
- The goal of the collaboration is to obtain faster reaction times to help authorities decide which zones and communities should be evacuated, and when.
Causal Inference Library
Multinational Consumer Electronics Company
Developing internal causal inference library consisting of 10+ algorithms and applied library to 2 use cases
Challenge
- Build causal inference library to be used by other data scientists in the future for various projects
- Enable activities such as churn analysis and A/B testing to be conducted
Solution
- Developed library in collaboration with internal stakeholders, did unite testing/documentation/user guide
- Worked on two related use cases needed for the analysis
- Unit8 implemented 60% of the algorithms for the project
Business impact
- Library enables data scientists to easily use multiple algorithms for causal inference through a unified API design
- 10+ algorithms implemented
Due Diligence Tool
US Law Firm
Building an application to streamline the due diligence process through a combination of automated web searches and web scraping
Challenge
- Client offers due diligence as a service
- Due diligence process is multi-tenant; users from multiple separate parties work together
- Process slowed down by back-and-forth communication and repetitive tasks
- Goal was to automate due diligence process
Solution
- Built a multi-tenant application to streamline the due diligence process end-to-end
- Implemented automated web search, website scraping and screening of entities linked to the target company
Business impact
- Project still in deployment, no impact available at this time
Supply Chain Demand Forecasting
Medical Equipment Manufacturer
Building a forecasting model for a medical equipment manufacturer resulting in significant forecasting accuracy improvements allowing better procurement planning and contract management
Challenge
- Forecasting challenges when it comes to their supply chain
- Demand Planners working very manually with back and forth between planners, sales, and manufacturing
- Goal is to improve this with a more intelligent tool
Solution
- Built forecasting model with features included in Darts in combination with hierarchical reconciliation
- Solution would stream data directly from SAP
Impact
- Forecasting improvements of 10-60% compared with historical forecasting methods, depending on the time outlook in the model
- Helps procurement negotiate better contracts with suppliers and plan manufacturing accordingly
Data Management, Forecast, and Visualization on Foundry
Swiss Raw Material Vendor
Demonstrated how a cloud platform can ingest different data sources and made dashboards and applications that could drive strategic decision-making
Challenge
- Client wanted to have a view of the current raw material inventory in the warehouse
- Need to forecast the inventory on customer side in order to optimize production and logistic cost and to increase customer satisfaction
Solution
- Data ingestion from different data sources including SAP, MeteoSwiss, and IoT devices
- Using Supply Chain offerings to define ontology
- Clean data
- Apply forecasting models through our Darts library
Business impact
- Showcase different forecasting models alternatives
- Optimized warehouse logistics
- Reduced excess inventory stock
Forest Wildfire Spread Prediction
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Developed a wildfire prediction system in collaboration with WWF to anticipate wildfire in Bolivian forests through a new fuel model based on geo data
Challenge
- Bolivian forests are at a high risk of wildfire
- Wildfire prediction system needed to anticipate how a fire might start and where it will spread
Solution
- Used publicly available data such as weather, climate, past fires, and geo data to model the wildfire spread starting at a certain point in time
- Created a new fuel model for Bolivia by transferring knowledge from available US data
Business impact
- A complete fuel model for the Bolivian territory is now available
- Applications created enable visualisation of past fires
- Discovered main pain points of ML with geo data and established a clear plan on how to tackle them and speed up future use cases
Supply Chain Control Tower
International Reseller
Building a tool to provide a 360° view over the whole supply chain, coupled with an alerting system when a certain material is reaching low stock levels
Challenge
- Recurrent struggle with materials being out of stock resulting in significant loss in sales
Solution
- Built application enabling users to see the whole supply chain, either globally or per material
- Implemented an alerting system that reports when a certain stock level is low and will soon need replenishment
Impact
- Reduction of average out-of stock levels at a given point in time by about 50%
- Lowered loss of turnover due to materials being out of stock
Foundry Onboarding
Nutrition startup
Onboarding a company on Foundry by providing personalised coaching and helping them implement an initial use case
Challenge
- Company recently acquired Foundry and the engineers lack the knowledge to launch an initial project
Solution
- Provided coaching to the engineers to teach them how to use Foundry’s capabilities
- Helped the engineers launch an initial project and create a minimum viable product
Impact
- Empowered internal engineers to use Foundry to its full potential on their own
Completed end-to-end implementation of a minimum viable product, from data ingestion to dashboards