person looking at data on computer screen

Carlson Analytics Lab Projects

Analytics Solutions Across Industries

Lab clients come from various industries and have included retailers, manufacturers, healthcare providers and insurers, consulting firms, entertainment venues, and more. The profiles here highlight some of their stories.

A Win-Win Partnership

Mall of America has partnered with the Carlson Analytics Lab on multiple analytics projects over three years. Such partnerships benefit everyone involved: clients get usable business solutions while students gain valuable experience.

Farmer Seeding

A Superior Similarity Metric

Students integrated soil, weather, and topography data to develop a metric based on growing conditions. Then they analyzed 300,000 farm fields, matching each to a research plot and improving performance by 7% on average.

Mechanics working on gears and machinery

New Capabilities for the Internet of Things

Students helped a global consulting firm expand its capabilities by building a cloud-based prototype to monitor streaming data from machine sensors and predict equipment failures.

Professional Stylist cuts hair

Regis Corporation Invests in Analytics

Regis Corporation has partnered with the Carlson Analytics Lab on several projects, including forecasting foot traffic at salon locations.

Sun Country plane landing

Mining Data for Insights at Sun Country

Unifying disparate data sources, students created a cohesive view of customer segments to inform the airline's marketing operation.

Mall of America Mines Insights from Wi-Fi Data

Mall of America Mines Wi-Fi Data

Students used Wi-Fi access point data to better understand visitor behavior and movement inside the enormous shopping and entertainment destination.

Forecasting Patient Census for Hennepin County Medical Center

HCMC Patient Census Forecast

A Lab team built multiple models to predict patient populations in 17 different nursing units, helping the hospital to optimize staffing and deliver patient care.

Tools

Based on the needs of each project, teams use a variety of technologies and tools, including:

  • Oracle
  • Microsoft SQL server
  • SQL
  • MySQL
  • Hadoop
  • MapReduce
  • Amazon Web  Services
  • Python
  • R
  • SAS/JMP
  • RapidMiner
  • Tableau