McLaren Uses High-Speed Data Analytics to Gain Formula 1 Edge

McLaren uses high-speed data analytics to gain Formula 1 edge

As we know McLaren Group is famous of its Formula 1 cars and its racing team, but this article is talking about how they use data analytics to gain its edge.

At first, the article introduces the McLaren's business such as Formula 1 cars, racing team, supplying medical monitoring to a hospital and telemetry to a transport system. To talk about using high-speed data analytics, the CIO said they were still test mode but they try to give the engineers more data that before. As we know, McLaren Group is best known for Formula 1 racing. It deploys telemetry systems, which use data generated by racing car sensors - there are 160 on each car, generating 1GB of raw data in each race. It is using HANA to do real-time analysis of that data in combination with historical data and predictive models. That is pumped to the garage on the spot and mission control back in Wokingham. In this situation, the company needs a faster data analytics to solve their issues. They hoped HANA, which is SAP's in memory database, could help them build the queries to solve problems. And in this case, we know that McLaren is one of the first SAP reference customers to sign up for the full ERP Business Suite on HANA. It's more like McLaren will be a good sample or case study for other companies. At last, the article also introduces others business McLaren has and the high speed data analytics will also work on those businesses.

This article is an interesting case because it shows some different points for IT strategy. For some companies, they thought that if they have data analytics, they would win in the market. But sometimes, when the company spends lots of time on a project, the company would lose the best time to win. This article gives the company a new idea that the faster data analytics gives company more opportunities. And when one project gets profits from the high speed data analytics, other projects could also use that model or modify the model to fit the new projects. Just like ITC eChoupal Initiative, it uses the same supply chain model to solve other supply chain issues and get a big win. In my opinion, the IT strategy is not always to find a new model to solve every project. Sometimes the companies should modify the old models or improve the old one to make it fit for other projects.

Reference: McLaren uses high-speed data analytics to gain Formula 1 edge Brian McKenna

Wednesday 22 May 2013

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240184539/McLaren-uses-high-speed-data-analytics-to-gain-Formula-1-edge