At the intersection of IT and business

Daniele Mele is one of SBB’s first data scientists in the area of business intelligence within security management. Until a few years ago, his position did not even exist. “Amid the ongoing digitalisation, more and more data becomes available and it wants to be analysed and evaluated,” Mele points out. Together with a number of fellow data scientists, he makes a valuable contribution to the areas of security and quality and thus to the well-being of passengers. His division acts as an interface between IT and business, Mele explains: “We edit the data sets in terms of content and visual presentation so that the decision makers can draw the correct conclusions. For this to work, we must understand the business needs of our employer as much as the technical aspects. This is why Mele is in constant exchange with other divisions. A train driver by training, he also knows the practical aspects of SBB’s operations first-hand.

Daniele Mele’s Master’s thesis was additional proof of his profound understanding of the SBB’s business needs. He developed a tool that automatically classifies and thus statistically attributes text messages by the operating personnel. “At the moment, this is still done manually by security management. This process is time-consuming and requires resources that would be better allocated in statistics,” Mele elaborates. The SBB is now in the process of implementing his text classification concept. Mele supervises the process as the product owner. “You also have to be able to sell yourself as a data scientist,” concludes Daniele Mele - he says that many companies are only just starting to see the full potential of data usage. He therefore advises prospective Data Science graduates to be open to the many and varied possibilities created by digitalisation.