A fantastic group of data scientists from Advanced Auto Parts will be joining us this Wednesday for our last proseminar session. They will talk about one of their latest projects to forecast sales during COVID. This is also an excellent opportunity to ask about career opportunities at AAP, a local fortune 300 company with great benefits!
This session is open to everyone in the StatSci department. I hope to see some new faces
Project Phoenix to predict AAP sales during COVID
This involved predicting future sales along geographic dimension, product groups (brakes, batteries etc.) and line of business (Retail, eComm and Professional.) COVID impact was captured through publicly available data - Google Mobility Data and COVID data. This was combined with historic sales data to predict future sales. To model sales, we chose to use Facebook Prophet, which is a time series modeling package. The application of time series modeling was then extended to making more accurate predictions for labor requirements at our stores. Another use case was predicting eComm KPIs (Sales, Traffic and Conversion) for our different digital channels (Paid Search, Paid Social etc.) We foresee many use cases of this modeling framework that we have built.
Bios
SUKANYA CHAUDHURI Sr. Manager, Marketing Analytics & Data Science
Sukanya Chaudhuri joined Advance Auto Parts in August 2019. Sukanya has been building ties within the AI Team and outside. As a result, she is involved in multiple projects across different value chains within the company – SpeedPerks, Professional Customers, DIY Customers, Pricing Team, Real Estate Team. She comes with a strong quantitative background with a Masters in Quantitative Economics, from Indian Statistical Institute and PhD in Economics from Purdue University. Prior to joining AAP, she was acting as an Engagement Manager and a Data Scientist with a consulting firm based out of NJ.
SCOTT SMITH: Data Scientist, Data Science
Scott joined Advance Auto Parts in August of 2018. Prior to working at Advance, Scott worked for IBM in a variety of areas including mainframe development, research, and IBM’s ecommerce suite. He has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, an MBA in finance, and a master’s degree in Statistics and Operations Research. He enjoys working on high-impact projects such as modeling product demand and predicting the lifetime value of our customers.
JOAN PHARR: Associate Data Scientist, Marketing Analytics & Data Science
Joan Pharr joined Advance Auto Parts in March 2019 as a Sr. Marketing Analyst. Her work supports Advance’s professional business and ranges from TechNet element analysis and Professional Customer clustering work to developing a model for Professional Customer Attrition. She holds a Master of Science degree in mathematics and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and Russian language.
JUSTIN WARD: Marketing Analyst, Marketing Analytics & Data Science
Justin joined Advance in January 2019 as a marketing analyst. He provides a wealth of information to the email marketing team. He has a Bachelors from Penn State University and an MBA from Syracuse.
LIPING WU: Data Scientist, Marketing Analytics & Data Science
Liping joined AAP in June 2018 as a Data Scientist. In the projects she has worked on, Customer Lifetime Value, Speed Perks Propensity Model, Pricing Strategy from Customers’ View etc., she finds great satisfaction not only in dealing with various types of data challenge and making sure her models work well, but also in solving business questions with actionable insights. Liping is a big believer in inclusive team culture, that’s why you can find her actively engaging in WIMN., company wise data professionals meeting and other team-based activities. Liping transitioned to data science world from a very different background, besides a master’s degree of Advanced Analytics which landed her in current role, she also holds master’s in Western Literature and bachelor’s in Chinese Literature.
KRISTEN BIDDLE Data Scientist, Data Science
Kristen joined Advance Auto Parts in December 2019 as a Project Coordinator. She is currently a part of the Advance AI team supporting multiple project -the Marketing Optimization Modeling project, the voice of the Customer Analysis, Project Phoenix – making enterprise wise forecasts, etc. She has a bachelor's degree from North Carolina State University (Go Pack!).
Statistical Science