My talk on Big Data from the 2nd Aviation IT Conference in London

1. Big Data: IT does matter
Dr. Sven Niedner, Jettainer
eMail: sven.niedner@jettainer.com, Twitter: S_N_I
London, November, 11th 2013
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2. Still true?

3. Who we are and why IT matters for us
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The leading ULD management companies
Reliable partner for 13 airlines wordlwide
100% owned by Lufthansa Cargo
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ULD fleet acqusition and lease back
Savings potential enabled by intelligent asset tracking
Over 60k air cargo ULDs – largest fleet in the world
Active control concept (forecast-based)
Zero offloads since …
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Role of IT: IT products are a differentiator
Jettware software for ULD management
Used at 350+ stations worldwide
Covers full ULD fleet lifecycle

4. Our customers
ULD management customers
+ JettLease short term lease
Our USP: 20% fleet size reduction due to our active control concept

5. Business questions
 Where are my ULDs?
 Where do I have to reposition my ULDs?
 How will the demand develop at an airport?
 Will I survive the next holiday season without any
offloads?
 Is my fleet to big?
 Whom can I borrow ULDs from? (Smart Pooling!)

6. Innovation is key for success – your Business questions will change
EASY
 Where the hell is that overstock coming from?
 How many ULDs did not move in the last X days?
HARDER
 How did my mean time between repair develop?
 How did the demand develop in the last year before
christmas?
VERY HARD
 Has there been a similar situation as today occured
before and how was it resolved?
 I want to introduce this crazy new KPI, but what was
it„s value last year?
Access to real
time data
Access to
historic data
Link real-time
data and historic
data

7. Jettware overview
Strategic
Tactical
Operational
JettStart: Demand simulation and
capacity planning
UCD Cockpit: Stock monitoring &
ULD positioning/move requests
2011
2008
Management Cockpit:
Overall performance monitoring
2012
Revised ULD Tracking Application
& DWH reporting tools
2012
Jettware: UCMs, LUCs and stock
checks at stations
2005
JettApp: Digital ULD tracking for
the ground handler
2013

10. <PARENTHESIS TOPIC=“mobile“>

11. Real world example: Mobile drives the hunger for realtime Big Data
Mobile devices collect more information than ever
 Not only the NSA, but also your company!
 Changing user beviour: Using application “on-the-go”, not only
“on premise”
People expect real time response & interactive UIs
 User expectations are set by Apple and Google
 Responses need to come within seconds
 You cannot satisfy your users with inferior quality
You think it’s different because your uses are your employees?
 Dream on!
 The pressure will come – from your users
 Think BYOD – consumer goods set the expectation level!
 These guys (Apple, Samsung, Sony, …) are fast and aggressive
 You will have to compete
JettApp device sends
ULD messages from the
ware house in real time
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Increased data quality
More information, more
events
Tablet PC
Running apps
Build on Android

12. </PARENTHESIS >

13. How to do it?

14. How to do it
Keep all your data.
Discard nothing.

15. Architecture
is important

16. Challenges
implement like:
query = function ( all data )

17. Keep all your data.
Forever.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jblndl/3326092093/sizes/l/in/photostream/

18. So where is “Big Data”?
 30.000 ULD movements per day, 100.000 messages per day (mostly SITA)
 Business is driven by data:
 ULD inventories
 stocks at stations
 flight plans and changes
 ULD histories back to 2005
 20 TB+ (and growing)
 >10.000.000.000 data sets
 Input mostly SITA messages: varying data quality and compliance
 … and our ULD control desk needs to act in real time

19. Challenges for IT
Really be real big!30.000 50 million USD
fast: (cargo ship) + $
It needs to
It needs to be real fast! (drag boat) + 20.000 USD
Conflicting goals  high cost (aircraft carrier): 9 Billion USD
Foto by Bengt Nymann, http://www.flickr.com/photos/bnsd/6139750090

20. Challenges for IT
Really be real big! (cargo ship) + 50 million USD
big: 100.000.000 $
It needs to
It needs to be real fast! (drag boat) + 20.000 USD
Conflicting goals  high cost (aircraft carrier): 9 Billion USD
Foto by cuxclipper, http://www.flickr.com/photos/36288065@N04/4949196610

21. Challenges for IT
It needs to be real big! (cargo ship) + 50 million USD
It needs to be real fast! (drag boat) + 20.000 USD
Conflicting goals  high cost (aircraft carrier): 9 Billion USD
Really fast and really big:
10.000.000.000 $
Foto by US Navy, http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnavy/5781645295

22. Really clever: The Lambda architecture pattern
Combining real-time and batch procssing:
Realtime
OUTPUT
View
Speed layer
INPUT
Batch
View
Batch
Layer
Serving
Layer
Lambda architecture proposed by Nathan Marz,Twitter
OUTPUT
Data
Views,
Reports,
Apps

23. Really clever: The Lambda architecture pattern
Realtime
View
OUTPUT
Data Views,
Reports,
Apps
Speed layer
INPUT
Batch
View
Batch
Layer
query =
function(all data)
Serving
Layer
OUTPUT
Design principles:
 Human fault tolerance
 Data immutability
 Recomputation

24. Different applications have different focus
Strategic
JettStart: Demand simulation and
capacity planning
Tactical
UCD Cockpit: Stock monitoring &
ULD positioning/move requests
Operational
Jettware: UCMs, LUCs and stock
checks at stations
Focus: real-time
Management Cockpit:
Overall performance monitoring
Focus: historic data
Focus: Application DWH
ULD Tracking historic&data
reporting tools
Recommender System
JettApp: Digital ULD tracking for
the ground handler

25. Build a mental model of you
business domain
And then map it on your
existing data structures
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alreadytaken/2136780794/

26. Think beyond the obvious
Go for second order effects:
 Network effects
 Correlations
 non-linear phenomenons

27. Enhanced Business domain insight
 Accept unreliable and
inconsistent data as a
fact
 You cannot fix the quality
of historic data
 Statistics will help you to
detect or cancel out
errors

28.  Have realistic expectations
regarding the Data Scientist role
 Nice idea in theory, but (almost)
impossible to find in reality
 Better kiss the frog now than
wait for the prince forever
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fcstpauli/2067908929/sizes/l/in/photostream/

29. Don’t loose your business focus.
For us it’s all about…
1. Demand vs. Supply
2. Overstock vs. Understock (balance network)
3. Demand forecast and tactical ULD movements
4. Strategic movements

30. <BACKUP >

31. <PARENTHESIS TOPIC=“agile“>

32. Implement lean and agile development tactics
The agile manifesto:
Individuals and interactions …
… over processes and tools
Working software …
… over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration …
… over contract negotiation
Responding to change …
… over following a plan

33. </PARENTHESIS >