Creation of a Local Data Analytics Center

Abstract

Industries all over the world are adopting the technologies of Industry 4.0 and one of the

main reasons for this is to meet the ever-growing demands of the market. This is happen- ing in a Swedish manufacturing company, SKF Group AB, who is the case company of this thesis. Within their World-Class unit, a vast amount of technologies has been imple- mented and one of these is the information technology. With this information technology, there is a massive influx of data created and stored on a daily basis. With this influx of vo- luminous datasets, the frequency of the streamed datasets needs to be processed in timely manner as well. In order to fulfill this need of processing and analyzing data, the initial steps moving forward is the “Creation of a Local Data Analytics Center”. The purpose of this center is to utilize the manufacturing capacity, efficiency, flexibility, and as well as increase the global competitiveness by making decisions supported by data. Therefore, as there is a need to process and analyze the data in timely manner, a prompt solution is required. First and foremost, prior to the implementation of a Local Data Analytic Center, this thesis investigates the existing data analytic tools available in the market today and what the functional requirements are of these data analytic tools.

As different companies have different needs, the results of data analytic tools suggested in this thesis needs to be adjusted to suit the requirements and needs to the company of question. However, the methodology applied in this thesis could be adapted to identify existing data analytic tools and the functional requirements of it. There are many different data analytic tools and methods available from different sections and industries, with a wide range of different requirements and levels of knowledge and expertise. Compared to the more traditionally focused data analytics utilized by experts (which requires a high level of knowledge), the delimitations of this “Creation of a Local Data Analytics Center” thesis, has been aligned with different aspects that were important to the case company of this thesis.

The results in this thesis are of importance as they serve in representing the first step taken in order to move forward, closer upon the “Creation of a Local Data Analytics Center”. However, it is important to acknowledge that these results are not flawless and should be critically viewed as there were limitations in the verification step throughout the methods conducted. There are many different aspects to be taken into consideration upon creating a “Local Data Analytics Center”, as it is a vast and complex world of integrated technologies. Therefore, this study only covered a miniscule area revolved around big data analytics and will not investigate the costs and system requirements. This study will be limited to answering the following research questions: “What Data Analytic tools are available on the market?” and “What are the functional requirements of the data analytic tool?”.