Data by itself is powerful, but data combined with other data can have even greater impact. Data’s combined power was highlighted this year through a collaborative effort spearheaded by KDDI Corp., one of Japan’s largest mobile carriers, Toyota Motor Corp., and Accenture PLC, as the three firms teamed up to make the lives of taxi drivers and their riders a little bit better.

Working with the JapanTaxi Co. Ltd, the companies developed a taxi dispatch support system which combines data from taxi logs, smartphone information, event metrics, and analytic engines to predict demand and allocate taxis where they are needed most at any given time.

“We created a new forecasting model called the AI Taxi Dispatch Model,” said Takuya Kudo (pictured, left), chief science officer at Arise Analytics Inc., a joint venture between KDDI and Accenture. “Now if you go to Tokyo, a majority of taxis have our algorithm that KDDI and Accenture provided.”

Kudo spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Executive Summit in Las Vegas. He was joined by Hitoshi Ienaka (pictured, right), chief executive officer of Arise Analytics, and they discussed how the work of Arise is impacting the manufacturing environment and ways the venture can empower customers. (* Disclosure below.)

Improved customer experience

The mission of Arise is to analyze big data and provide an improved experience for customers using the platform hosted by Amazon Web Services Inc. Results during the pilot phase of the taxi project in Tokyo showed an average sales increase of more than 20 percent for drivers who used the system.

The Arise venture has also developed new analytics tools for the manufacturing arena, which can send predictive maintenance alerts and empower employees on the factory floor who may not be experienced in data science.

“We created live predictive maintenance, which allows companies ahead of time to identify potential breakdowns,” Ienaka explained. “The prediction of machine failure can be performed by almost anyone, where it used to be provided only by experienced employees before.”

At the core of the Arise endeavor is a belief in bringing technology to those who may not always have access to sophisticated analytics tools. The taxi driver seeking more riders and the factory floor employee looking to keep machinery running are just two beneficiaries of this approach.

“The base concept is to provide a universal model for those who lack the technology,” Kudo said. “KDDI’s philosophy is universality, so that’s also our business strategy.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Executive Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Executive Summit event. Neither Accenture LLP, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE