The Right Way to Use Big Data

Big data has the potential to revolutionize your operations, but many companies in the rail industry aren’t using big data to its fullest extent, which means they aren’t extracting the best results. Many gather all the data and look for correlations, but don’t know how to go about finding causation – and determining causation is what helps you find a solution.

 

At Wi-Tronix, we take a different approach. Instead of looking at data to find problems, we use big data to solve problems. Having large volumes of data is only valuable when you understand what the information in the data actually means in the context of your business. Think about it: you don’t just want to know that a problem exists, you want to know why it happened and what you can do to fix it. Big data can give you that when analyzed within the right combination of technology and context.

 

When it comes to big data, it’s more important to collect a broad set of data, rather than large quantities of data in narrow categories. Broader data sets inherently provide greater context, and therefore more insight. When it comes to big data, context is everything.

 

Context is why it’s important to partner with someone who understands your domain, the problems in your industry, and the opportunities for you and your company to solve these problems. This is the approach Wi-Tronix takes: we know the rail industry and the problems that exist, then we use broad data to fully understand those issues and provide solutions.

 

We are working to add more context and more data sets. Broad context provides valuable insights, for example, when you have video, audio, geo-spatial, and weather data, you can have a much more meaningful view of what is happening with your trains. Wi-Tronix focuses on building broad data sets and applying rail-specific nuance to our algorithms, which is what leads us to the discoveries that solve problems.

 

We want to use big data in ways that make it easy for our customers to understand the information presented and find the most efficient solutions for their businesses. Big data can provide real solutions and real insight for your business to drive safety, efficiency, and reliability, but to do that you need broad data sets and context. It’s not a buzzword or trend, but a way to synthesize more information than has ever been possible.

 

Originally published on LinkedIn