SAS and Open Source Integration

“SAS has the ability to bring together the data scientist community like no other solution can.”

Shawn Hushman • Former VP of Decision Sciences • Cox Automotive

Becoming 'code agnostic' at Cox Automotive

At Cox Automotive, SAS Viya is the glue holding the analytics organization together. With a team that includes people around the world who code in Python, R and SAS, the ability to integrate disparate code, processes and information into one hub that provides consistent delivery of information is particularly impressive.

“We have people programming in multiple interfaces, and they’re using different ways to collaborate on model development," says Shawn Hushman, former Vice President of Decision Sciences for Cox Automotive. "They have different ways they like to publish and show the output and different ways to deploy the models. SAS allows us to stitch it all together.”

“Analytics is not just a capability that supports your core strategy. It has to be a core strategy of its own.”

Chris Donovan • Executive Director of Analytics • Cleveland Clinic

Opening analytics to executives at Cleveland Clinic

At Cleveland Clinic, giving more people access to analytics is a priority, with an aim toward growing analytics maturity across the whole health care system instead of centralizing analytics skills and capabilities in one team. “Our leaders may not know how to build a predictive model, but they need to be able to use data to make better decisions,” says Chris Donovan, Executive Director of Analytics at Cleveland Clinic. “Not everyone is a data scientist. But everyone needs to be able to interact with data at their level.”

This focus on analytics has helped Cleveland Clinic transform from a focus on palliative care to preventive care. And the leaders at Cleveland Clinic want to make data easily available to executives and managers with drag-and-drop capabilities and simple interfaces.

“So we’ll do the forecasting with open analytics as an initial prototype. When we’re happy with that first stage, we run it in SAS. For us, it’s easier to create an industrial-strength product in SAS.”

Jeremy TerBush • Senior VP of Analytics • Wyndham Destination Network

Going from prototype to industrial-strength results at Wyndham Destination Network

The analytics team at Wyndham Destination Network uses a combination of open source and enterprise analytics to find innovative solutions to complex problems – from pricing elasticity to resort operations and customer retention.

"One of the main benefits of using both SAS and open source software is that you can let people use the platform they’re most comfortable with," says Jeremy TerBush, Senior Vice President of Analytics at Wyndham Destination Network. "It’s a learning curve for them to completely shift their thinking. To allow everyone to use whatever platform they’re comfortable with is a big productive boost for us. I think we get better answers too. We can collect the best practices and draw from communities of all platforms and have a bigger pool of ideas. It gives us more flexibility within the team to solve the problem in a number of different ways."

“We think that data science – and SAS – can help reduce intersection fatalities."

Team Hackanadians

Hackathon team uses SAS plus open source to optimize traffic sensors in emergencies

Members of Hackanadians, a 2021 SAS hackathon team, used techniques that combined SAS and open source to create an audio-based intersection management app for emergency vehicle prioritization. The artificial intelligence (AI) application uses optimization, IoT sensors, machine learning and deep learning to detect sirens and commandeer traffic signals to allow emergency vehicles to pass more safely through traffic.