Case Studies > Drilling into Complex Data Enables Data-Driven Decisions and Yields Big Profits

Drilling into Complex Data Enables Data-Driven Decisions and Yields Big Profits

Company Size
1,000+
Region
  • America
Country
  • United States
Product
  • Emcien Pattern Detection Platform
Tech Stack
  • Pattern Detection Algorithms
  • Real-time Data Analysis
Implementation Scale
  • Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
  • Cost Savings
  • Customer Satisfaction
  • Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
  • Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
  • Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
Applicable Industries
  • Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions
  • Product Research & Development
  • Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
  • Inventory Management
  • Predictive Maintenance
  • Process Control & Optimization
Services
  • Data Science Services
  • System Integration
About The Customer
Ditch Witch is an American brand of underground construction equipment, which has been in operation under the current name since 1949. The Ditch Witch organization specializes in the design and manufacture of underground construction equipment including trenchers, vibratory plows, backhoes, electronic guidance and locating tools, horizontal directional drilling systems, and more. The company has a long-standing reputation for innovation and quality in the construction industry. With a diverse product portfolio, Ditch Witch serves a wide range of customers, from small contractors to large construction firms, providing them with the tools and equipment necessary to complete complex underground construction projects efficiently and effectively. The company is committed to continuous improvement and leveraging advanced technologies to meet the evolving needs of its customers.
The Challenge
Product complexity, like data complexity, can become a serious liability as companies strive to profitably meet customer demand. If you don’t know what’s in your data or what your customers really want, you end up guessing and that gets expensive. At Ditch Witch, longer customer lead-times – from 30 days up to six or eight months – were a direct result of this proliferation in product variety. Jacky Williamson, Pricing, Product Structure and Target Costing Manager for Ditch Witch, describes the “spec creep” phenomenon they were facing: “We’d think of an option and just add it to the product, and we’d keep adding and never delete anything. We felt like we were taking something away from customers if we removed an option. With so many options, our planning was poor, leading to longer and longer lead times.” The proliferation in product features made managing, planning and forecasting demand accurately even more challenging. The manufacturing plant doesn’t know what inventory to stock and runs out of certain parts while carrying excess of other unnecessary parts. Dealers are unsure what to stock for customers. Sales teams struggle with knowing – much less presenting – the entirety of available products. Ability to sell becomes compromised.
The Solution
Ditch Witch needed a way to gain a unified view of customer demand down to the parts level. In an effort to optimize and consolidate product lines as efficiently as possible, Ditch Witch selected Emcien. Emcien’s pattern-detection algorithms are designed specifically to detect patterns across all data types in real-time and automatically analyze those patterns to determine the most significant and relevant connections, correlations, and communities. In the case of Ditch Witch, the software identified buying patterns, optimized the product mix, and guided new orders accordingly, enabling the best configurations for both the customer and the company. Companies typically focus on the mechanics of data collection, but not necessarily the analysis. Ditch Witch saw an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage by pioneering the usage of their underutilized data. “Emcien was tasked to solve this major pain in the organization,” said Williamson. “The technology and information they equipped our organization with, every part – from sales to the plant – realized improvement.” “By using Emcien to help optimize our product options and standardize our base product on popular functionality, we anticipate that our product offering will better represent our customer’s needs and that our gross profit will increase,” said Williamson.
Operational Impact
  • Emcien’s pattern detection platform delivered insight into “dark” data across data silos, driving the data-driven decision-making the company needed to better serve customers with greater efficiency and profitability.
  • The product structure has become more nimble, allowing Ditch Witch to strategically decipher what inventory to stock and when.
  • The technology and information provided by Emcien led to improvements across all parts of the organization, from sales to the manufacturing plant.
  • Ditch Witch was able to optimize their product options and standardize their base product on popular functionality, better representing customer needs.
Quantitative Benefit
  • Increased gross profit
  • Improved parts mix and inventory planning
  • Consolidated core product offering

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