BMW Deploying IBM Big Data & Analytics Technology

ARMONK, N.Y. and HANNOVER, Germany, March 11 — At the CeBIT exhibition in Hannover, IBM announced today that premium car manufacturer BMW Group is deploying IBM Big Data & Analytics technology to optimize products, repairs and maintenance. The use of predictive analytics helps to detect and fix vulnerabilities before new models are launched – and long before they might cause problems in series production.

The analyses include product and development data as well as warranty, diagnostics, and repair information that is gathered and evaluated worldwide.

With IBM Big Data & Analytics technology, the insights obtained from these large amounts of data can be incorporated into the product design and production process. Analyses that often used to take several months are available within a few days now, so that potential issues are detected and fixed swiftly to avoid recurring faults.

The IBM SPSS predictive analytics software helps to combine and analyze data from, for instance, numerous test drives of prototypes, an average of 15,000 faults recorded by vehicles, and details from recent workshop reports. This way, vulnerabilities can be quickly identified and eliminated before new models go into series production. The results of the analyses are immediately channeled back into the operational processes, helping to reduce error rates and save costs. Previously, the evaluation of this data took months to complete.

Using IBM Big Data & Analytics, all available data sources can be analyzed to discover patterns and anomalies to predict and anticipate maintenance needs. Thanks to the targeted evaluation of product, maintenance and repair data, repair instructions can be issued on a timely basis, reducing the number of workshop visits and speeding up repair times.

Another benefit is the automation of certain analyses, since different business divisions and subsidiaries often have similar analytics queries. For these recurring questions there is now a solution that can be used to provide answers to a range of queries. Approximately 250 of these analytics applications are now available, enabling more than 500 users from BMW Group to perform their own analyses. The proportion of analytics provided on a “self service” basis is rising continuously, also since the analyses are easy to carry out.