2020 Great Lakes Data & Analytics Summit

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Not everyone is a data cruncher, but in the data age, every professional should be using analytics to make strategic business decisions. This means business units and departments — sales, marketing, customer service, finance, HR, operations, and IT — not only need the power of analytics at their fingertips, but they must learn to fully leverage it. With access to insights, each department can take on bigger challenges, improve speed to insight, and optimize processes with the power of data. Join Alan Jacobson, Chief Data Officer at Alteryx as he highlights best practices needed to ensure a strong culture of analytics, including how to overcome challenges and seize opportunities.

Presented by: Alan Jacobson, Alteryx

Alan Jacobson is the chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) of Alteryx, driving key data initiatives and accelerating digital business transformation for the Alteryx global customer base. As CDAO, Jacobson leads the company’s data science practice as a best-in-class example of how a company can get maximum leverage out of its data and the insights it contains. He is responsible for data management and governance, product and internal data, and use of the Alteryx Platform to drive continued growth.

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This session will be an overview of a unique machine learning project to deliver factors that would help divert mental health consumers from going to jail for a misdemeanor offence. The project engineers unusual datasets from Wayne County Jail inmates and mental health network clients to find the highest health diagnostic and patient factors for use in an intervention program to reduce their clients from becoming inmates. Wayne County spends an average of over $33 million per year on housing non-violent criminals who are brought in for misdemeanor or ordinances charges. On average, 34% of individuals charged with misdemeanor and ordinance violations also have a severe mental illness. This is a huge expense of time and resources spent by tax payers that could be better allocated to focus on violent crime and violent criminals.

Presented by: Chief Robert Dunlap, Wayne County Sheriff's Office & Andrea Smith, DWIHN

Chief Robert Dunlap is a law enforcement executive with more than 30 years of law enforcement experience. He currently serves as Chief of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office in Detroit, Michigan, where he is responsible for the day-to-day operations and management of more than 1000 employees spread across five divisions which includes jails, courts, and patrol operations. Prior to his appointment to the rank of Chief in September of 2015, Dunlap held several other key positions within the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office which includes, Director of Jail Classification and Lead Project Consultant for the New Consolidated Wayne County Jail Project.

Andrea Smith, DWIHN

Andrea Smith serves as Director of Workforce Training & Program Development with the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network. In this role, Andrea leads the oversight, development, implementation, and monitoring of clinical service models while evaluating workforce needs — strategically planning and implementing ways to address gaps through training and grantsmanship.

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This session reviews our in-progress corporate strategic turnaround plan called Path to Brilliance and its three planks: Customer First, OmniChannel, and Culture of Agility and Efficiency. Data prep and data viz tools are key to delivering on the Culture of Agility and Efficiency, but it takes more than just purchasing software platforms: It is about changing the hearts and minds of the user community and gaining executive buy-in. In this session you will learn how we have encountered and overcome process challenges, how we are building a true community of passionate analysts, and how we have gone from a handful of licenses a few years ago, to proof-of-concept, to Enterprise Deployment.

Presented by: Gary Gruccio, Signet Jewelers

Gary is the Director of Enterprise and Market Analytics at Signet Jewelers and is based out of northeast Ohio. He has always had a passion for data, specifically geospatial data, which led him to pursue his BA and MS in Geography from the University of Akron. In 1996 he began his career as a Geographer for the U.S. Census Bureau in Detroit, working on the TIGER files for Census 2000. After the Census he returned to Ohio to work at Signet Jewelers in the field of geospatial analytics. He has held various roles within Marketing and Real Estate and currently leads a team of enthusiastic analysts in a newly created Enterprise Analytics department.

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Data alone is useless. Data with history? Now that’s information. Add context, you get knowledge. For manufacturers, finding a way to crack open data siloes around the company can lead to real business value at all levels of the organization. This session is for leaders who are wondering how to merge the various machines, systems, people, and processes in the right way to find data that can be trusted.

Michael Hart, Plex Systems

Michael Hart is a director of product strategy for manufacturing and industrial IoT at Plex Systems. In this role, he designs and builds cloud solutions exclusively for the manufacturing industry. Mike also leads IoT (Internet of Things) product innovation, helping global manufacturers leverage the latest connected technologies to achieve more efficient, agile and automated operations. Mike has nearly 20 years of experience in the cloud software industry.

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Starting a data science practice on a non-digitally native organization can result in a frustrating experience for individuals who envision their roles being homologous to that of a Data Scientist who works for a fully data-driven or digitally-native organization. The challenges, tools and culture are different. Hence, the way data science teams operate can be a completely different experience.

Organizational leaders who choose to invest in a data science team often struggle with gaining traction. Tools and skills can be acquired, but methods and processes required to embed data science practices into an organization can often be overlooked. So, what do the teams need? How should they start?

During the session, I will go over five key considerations that have been foundational in the creation of a successful and powerful data science team in a century-old organization with limited digital dexterity and a long road ahead of their digital transformation journey.

Presented by: Jorge Lozano, Steelcase

Jorge currently leads the Applied Data Science team at Steelcase which focuses on leading the data science related efforts in direct support of an organizational digital transformation. The team's focus is to transform customer experiences by developing innovative ways to group, measure and interact with Steelcase's products.

Jorge joined Steelcase and joined the very early stages of a centralized Advanced Analytics team. Over the last 5 years, he has been working on data science initiatives for the organization. During this time, he has been part of the evolution of the team; their victories, failures, strengths, and weaknesses. Jorge has learned firsthand the challenges of setting up a data science practice in a non-digitally native organization.

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During this session, Saima will discuss AAM's Global Digitization initiative and their decision to be a leader among the automotive manufacturing industry to embrace public cloud and the market-leading Snowflake data analytics platform that is redefining industry expectations. AAM's Digitization roadmap involves AAM moving 100% to the public cloud for analytics by 2021 without a massive ramp-up in either technology costs or staffing costs. Saima's unique approach for partnering with key Manufacturing and Engineering business leaders to enable the agile delivery of Data Science business-driven projects has earned her the highest respect of the AAM senior leadership team. She will discuss her technology stack, the AAM Digitization roadmap, and also some of the projects "in the queue" at AAM for 2020.

Saima Sattar, American Axle & Manufacturing

Saima Sattar the Director of IT - Digital & Analytics at American Axle & Manufacturing. She is an experienced global digital transformation and enterprise technology leader who has successfully developed and executed digital roadmaps aligned with corporate objectives for multibillion-dollar manufacturing organizations.

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As true with any other manufacturing company, Meritor also spends lot of time in collecting the data but very little time to use the data for meaningful insights and decision making. This journey is about reversing that trend and give business the data insights which help them in making better and informed decision. This session is about how Meritor’s analytics journey started and what the road blocks were on the way and how we overcame those. We will talk about how we are using agile methodology to deliver quick data insights. We also talk about how we are going to empower our business users to make them self-sufficient in their data needs.

Presented by Khuzema Tikiwala, Meritor

Khuzema Tikiwala is currently working as Solution Architect – Analytics and BI at Meritor Inc. He did his BS in Mechanical Engineering and MBA in Finance. During his 27 years of professional career he has worked in various capacities as Manager, Technical Leader, Solution Architect and Developer. His areas of expertise include Data & Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Data Integration, Data Governance, and Application Development (Web & Mobile) across various verticals. He believes in “Let our data guide us in providing meaningful insights needed to fuel success”. His focus in Meritor is on building a solid Analytical Platform and help take the organization to next level of technology including but not limited to Predictive Analytics, IoT, AI, Machine Learning and Smart Factories. He is always looking for community service opportunities. He is associated with various non-profit organizations as a volunteer.