The Center for Business Analytics is pleased to recognize Owens Corning as an honoree of the 2023 Drexel LeBow Analytics 50 Awards. Read more about how Owens Corning used analytics to solve a business challenge.
Submitter
Malavika Melkote, Director Analytics and IT
Company
Owens Corning
Industry
Manufacturing
Business Challenge
Sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present while leaving the world a better place for the future. Transparency is important in providing customers with information about Owens Corning products. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to measure the environmental footprint of a product at all stages of its life cycle, from extraction of raw materials through processing, manufacturing, product use, and all the way to end of life through disposal or recycling. This project delivered scalable digital capabilities for LCA data and insights to drive sustainability goals. The objective of the project was to enhance efficiency, speed and scalability, with data collection from over 100 plants around the world and multiple third-party sources on which to analyze and report.
Analytics Solution
Data collection across plants was manual and prone to inconsistencies, as inputs depended on the employee collecting data, which caused variation in measurements and information from plant to plant. The first step was to standardize data collection to build a user tool enabling data for an LCA to be obtained by simply selecting a plant, product group and date range. Calculations were standardized by leveraging the enterprise data warehouse for metrics and reporting. A true game changer was the improved speed with which data was collected from plants and third-party sources, creating a future-ready data foundation. Using flexible models, the team can calculate product environmental footprints and perform scenario analysis to direct product and process design changes, which can lower the environmental footprint.
Impact
The data foundation, built for future growth, drives employee productivity in plants across the globe by reducing time spent on data collection and integration from one month to three days. LCAs can be performed at a higher cadence with increased accuracy, continuously improving product sustainability with a data-driven feedback loop. The data foundation also improves responsiveness to customer requests for information related to carbon footprint.