New ISQS Center for Advanced Analytics and
Business Intelligence
Dr. Peter H. Westfall, Horn
Professor of Statistics in the Area of Information Systems and Quantitative
Sciences has created a center housed in the Rawls College of Business
Administration at Texas Tech University called “Center for Advanced Analytics
and Business Intelligence,” or CAABI. The center has received all but
final approval from the regents, and is off to a roaring start:
- A class called “Directed Studies in Business
Intelligence” was offered in Spring ’04 under the
auspices of CAABI. Students were involved in various projects, including:
- Development of a set
of white papers on various aspects of BI, including text mining using
freeware, market mix models, business intelligence for financial
institutions, and web mining.
- Creation of a CAABI web
page http://caabi.ba.ttu.edu/.
- Analysis of inventory data
from a large automobile manufacturer to predict time-on-lot from car
features and region.
- Involvement with the local
Tyco production facility on two projects (a) reduce
waste by improving their data capture and delivery systems, (b)
utilization of Data Mining tools to improve plant efficiencies.
- Submission of a paper to
the student APICS competition on business intelligence and resource
management.
- CAABI has joined forces with the Center for Innovative
Organizations, headed by Dr. Barry Macy of the Management area of the Rawls College, to develop a BI proposal
for integrating corporate, customer, and consumer data for one of Proctor
and Gamble’s global business units. The $1,000,000 grant
proposal is currently being evaluated by P&G.
- A new course will be offered under the auspices of
CAABI for Fall ‘04 entitled “Data and Text Mining
for Business Intelligence.” The course will utilize business
intelligence software of SAS Institute, and will serve Masters and
Doctoral students.
- Grid computing has now been established in the Rawls College as an outcome of CAABI
activities. Grid computing allows multiple computers to work in
parallel, accomplishing compute-intensive jobs in a small fraction of the
time needed for a single computer. Working with the TTU CIO Sam
Segran, CAABI secured 100 licenses of grid enabling software for installation
in the lab machines. The grid system has been used successfully for
a research project studying events in financial data, performing 25 hours
of computation in 40 minutes.
- CAABI sponsors a course in Six Sigma, taught in the
ISQS department by Dr. Pat Smith, Research Professor in ISQS, with
software and training opportunities. Recently, CAABI sponsored Dr.
Smith’s attendance at a conference on incorporating Six Sigma methods in
Health Organization Management.
Future goals for CAABI
include
- Undergraduate and graduate majors and minors in
Business Intelligence
- Certification programs in data mining
- More external industry involvement, local and
non-local.
- A CAABI newsletter