Generac powers business transformation with data, AI

“It’s a tale of two companies,” Dickson says of the company’s evolution from standalone manufacturing to a multifaceted energy technology company. “Most manufacturers do not have their data consolidated,” the CIO explains. “From an IT perspective, the biggest opportunity for us is consolidating and connecting all our data from across different units in the company into one single data platform for the purpose of strategic analysis and reporting and the potential of that analysis and AI to drive future revenues and growth for the company.” 

To render the most comprehensive data map and recommendations, Dickson and his team collected data from every business unit, every IT system, every server, and every data center. PowerInsights also uses various IoT technologies and services derived from more than 15 acquisitions Generac has completed, including solar batteries, e-thermostats, and software that connects industrial equipment to the internet. Sensors on IoT devices, including Generac’s backup power supplies, clean energy solar batteries, and other energy technologies, feed data into the Azure Data Factory as well.  

“AI makes that data usable,” Dickson says of the platform. “We were able to plot all of our assets and all of our acquired M&A assets into one single map for visualization so we can allow predictive analysis to predict how past weather patterns might impact one region’s stability and predict possible machine failures.” 

For instance, the data and existing models give sales and service teams opportunities to notify existing customers about the need to service their equipment before a frosty winter or imminent storm. PowerInsights also incorporates a licensed external service to determine when and where power outages occur.  

“We have integrated power outage data as well so [our sales and marketing team] can overlay our assets when a power outage occurs in a particular part of the country and reach out to people to see if they’re interested in a generator,” Dickson says.  

Dickson’s team wrote one AI model, for example, that was released to a small subset of its dealer network “to predict when they could potentially win more business for us both,” he says, adding that Generac’s work with Databricks has furthered the company’s journey into predictive modeling.