Powering efficient manufacturing worldwide
Hanwha Corporation uses Databricks to improve business agility and sustainability
Reduction in manual reporting time
Reduction in development time via optimized data management
In the fast-paced manufacturing industry, data-driven decision-making is considered a prerequisite for business agility. Hanwha Corporation, a key business of the Hanwha Group, knew they had to update their internal processes to be more data-friendly, especially with having three separate divisions — including their Global, Momentum, and Engineering and Construction businesses — and steadily realizing sustainable growth in various areas of enterprise manufacturing and construction. Due to the recent reorganization of their business and entry into various markets such as eco-friendly materials, equipment and green construction, Hanwha Corporation committed to their new goal of building an integrated data analysis platform and are now actively utilizing data and AI for data-driven scenario analysis and scheduling across all business areas. Databricks Data Intelligence Platform was introduced to meet these initiatives. With the goal of maximizing data value, Hanwha Corporation has now reduced manual reporting time by 97%+ and traditional input by 90%+, putting them in prime position to help make global manufacturing and construction more efficient and sustainable.
Data silos slow cross-team collaboration
Hanwha Corporation needed to efficiently manage scattered data across various existing computer systems and reorganize it into one unified system. The existing databases were operated independently by each division and were siloed with limited integration. The cumbersome structure also required access to multiple systems to obtain a complete picture of their data — causing time and cost limitations and making it difficult to derive effective insights.
With the business reorganization in 2023 and rapid changes in the business landscape, timely data-informed business responses became essential. Operating various divisions, including their Global business, encompassing petrochemicals, industrial explosives and mining services, their Momentum business, comprising machinery and equipment solutions, and their Engineering and Construction business — all under a unified management — became an important goal for the company. Haejin Jeong, Chief Digital Transformation Officer at Hanwha Corporation explained, “Previously, our defense business had disjointed networks for security reasons, but the business reorganization and conversion to a private company opened up an exciting opportunity to build a cloud-based integrated system.”
Therefore, Hanwha Corporation adopted the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to build a data-driven decision-making system to strengthen data synergies. “We compared and reviewed many data analytics platforms in the market and selected Databricks, which provides excellent services in terms of integration, scalability, data governance and security,” said Jeong.
Maximizing data value and insights through Databricks
In order to build the new digital-first culture of Hanwha Corporation, the team wanted to create an effective data infrastructure to maximize the value of data. The multi-faceted company organized their existing data infrastructure (SAP, RDBMS, etc.) built by various business divisions — as well as the data collected from external sources into an integrated data pipeline through Delta Lake. With Databricks SQL, they were able to optimize their data processing capabilities and empower all data users to query data. Since the Databricks Platform supports data of various scales, they were able to freely adjust cluster configurations and Apache Spark™ versions with CPU and GPU selection to optimize their workloads and utilize various cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, etc.). In leveraging Unity Catalog, Hanwha Corporation was also able to establish a standardized data governance and collect data from across the company through a unified repository and pipeline with effectively managed permissions. Using Parquet, an open data format, data scientists and machine learning engineers could more easily utilize the same data, further enhancing collaboration.
The open source nature of Databricks, as well as the connectivity between tools that can be easily integrated, has greatly enhanced the company’s potential for continuous development. Furthermore, Databricks has provided a variety of support in building a new data infrastructure alongside Hanwha Corporation — including technical and issue resolution support to Hanwha’s data engineers, ranging from basic usage of the platform to advanced analytics, including machine learning (ML) and large language models (LLMs), and various trainings and hands-on exercises to improve the capabilities of their data and AI teams.
By connecting the Databricks Platform with various visualization tools such as Tableau and Microsoft Power BI, they were able to increase the visibility of data and insights — maximizing value to the business. The company’s data that could now be viewed and analyzed through a single view through Databricks proved to be more accurate and time efficient than manually generating reports. “The Databricks Platform, which combines the advantages of a data warehouse and a data lake, allows us to effectively integrate fragmented and siloed data to perform data analysis quickly and easily,” said Ho Seung Shin, Digital Transformation Strategy Team Leader at Hanwha Corporation.
Improving business productivity and agility
By building a digital culture with the adoption of a unified approach, Hanwha Corporation has significantly reduced data management and analysis time by providing an easy-to-access interface that handles everything from data engineering to analytics and AI. For example, Databricks has automated manual tasks — such as data processing, cleansing and adjustment — reducing the time it takes to complete such tasks by more than 97%. Additionally, the standardized data collection methods have also improved Hanwha Corporation’s bottom line, reducing the time required for input screen development by more than 90% — a huge time savings that has boosted overall productivity and value across the business.
With Databricks Data Intelligence Platform, Hanwha Corporation has built a centralized system that enables their many business units to easily access data and use it for business analysis. This has enabled them to effectively provide meaningful information to decision-makers in a timely manner. “We have increased work productivity by streamlining data analysis and reporting and improving the accuracy and timeliness of data-driven decision-making through integrated data management,” Shin elaborated.
Looking forward, Hanwha Corporation is now empowered with a solid foundation for data analysis that will make it easier to expand the scope of their AI and ML use cases, including optimizing processes and making intelligent predictions that will improve decision-making. “Reducing human error and enabling people to make the right decisions at the right time with accurate data will have a positive impact on work performance, efficiency and ultimately the quality of life of Hanwha employees,” concluded Jeong. “I’m confident that this collaboration with Databricks will accelerate our digital transformation today and into the future.”
