BWT Alpine F1 Team creates a performant, data-driven culture with Power BI

Racing for better innovation

Every time BWT Alpine F1 Team drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly get behind the wheel, hundreds of sensors collect over 50 billion data points that help the team’s technical staff improve the cars’ aerodynamics, performance, and handling. “The pace in how we work is really fast,” says Ian Pearce, Head of Supply Chain at BWT Alpine F1 Team. “We often work in a two-week or even a one-week cycle between races, and every single race, without failure, we have to provide new parts.”

When BWT Alpine F1 Team evaluated its internal data workflows, it discovered process inefficiencies which led to inconsistent data interpretation. “People were using Excel sheets and email chains,” says Kerrie Sparling, Power Platform Development Manager at BWT Alpine F1 Team. “I understand people like to work in their own way and generate their own reports, but we needed to create a new data culture to get to that single source of truth.” 

The team needed a way to unify their data sources, transform the data, and unlock insights in real-time. “We’re very reactive—we need fast, actionable insights,” says Christian Clogger, Head of Alpine Racing Image and Identity at BWT Alpine F1 Team. “We have to get our work done as quickly and reliably as possible.” This is especially critical for ordering new parts to ensure that the cars are functioning at full capacity for every race. 

BWT Alpine F1 Team needed a new formula

It was challenging at first to get people on board, but as Kerrie Sparling and her team implemented Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Power BI, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Power Apps, and continued to push data culture, the rest of the company came around. “We've done a lot of work replacing old manual processes to make sure we're capturing the right data in Dynamics 365 and that it’s presenting in the right way using Power BI,” says Sparling.  “Now, when we present the data, it’s unified. We get a really good view of our data in one single place, so that everyone is working towards the same targets and KPIs.” 

Dynamics 365 is helping BWT Alpine F1 Team use that data to optimize internal performance. “Most of the data we see on our screens is collected in Dynamics 365,” says Pearce. “We can see when a machine starts and stops a job. When a job progresses to the next stage, we know how we're performing against our targets.” Pearce continues, "We use some of the data collected to identify our bottlenecks in the supply chain so we can focus on the most important areas first, as part of our continuous improvement initiatives. A very good example of this was the implementation of an automation script for CAM programming in our composites production areas. Programming and machining time has been reduced by up to 80% on some components, which creates additional capacity and improves our on-time delivery."

Using Azure, the team can consolidate all of its data into a single environment to uncover the key insights that shape design decisions and inform race strategy. Microsoft Power BI reports enable better visibility into the quantity of car part data and a more organized way of tracking ongoing production, which has improved the team’s on-time delivery for new parts. 

“Power BI gives us visibility of parts,” says Nathan Sykes, IT Business Systems and Data Science Director at BWT Alpine F1 Team. “It might be metrics of looking at how many parts we've created. Of those parts created, how far behind are we? How far ahead are we? Having full insight into this data informs our decisions.”

This kind of visibility combined with a more data-driven approach is already changing the company’s data culture for the better. “When we first put the screens up and started displaying the data we saw a big improvement in our on-time delivery,” says Pearce. “Because it was so visible, it seemed to push everybody to work a bit harder.”

Beyond the finish line

With over 50 billion data points captured at each race, paired with telemetry from the factory, BWT Alpine F1 Team has had an abundance of data to work with. Now, the team is unlocking the potential of that disparate data with the Microsoft Cloud. “Microsoft has made it possible for my team to be more proactive when it comes to the information the data is providing—and have a strategic advantage over our competitors,” says Sparling. 

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