So first of all, what is MarketMastor™? It was a term coined several years ago to describe work relating to the technical marketing of coals that utilised data science techniques. For example:
- Identify positive and negative attributes, and rank coals in the market as compared to competitor coals.
- Research, collate, develop and use various databases relating to coal quality, power plants, coal pricing, shipping etc.. Develop visualisations from the data and evaluate.
- Generate interactive dashboards to interrogate various forms of data.
- Identify the best customers (e.g. power plants) for targeted marketing campaign based on competitor advantage and other technical factors (e.g. coal suitability, blending considerations etc).
- Prediction of coal quality parameters using developed correlations and machine learning models.
Data science relates to finding hidden value in data. From a coal perspective this relates to coal quality, power plant data, coal pricing, shipping costs, blend modelling, power plant modelling (e.g. value-in-use, power plant performance etc). Databases of this information can be used to assist develop marketing strategies to maximise coal sales and prices. Data evaluations can also assist investigate coal utilisation problems in power plants or steelworks.
During my journey applying data science techniques to coal marketing, I have developed a wide range of different, and sometimes interesting visualisations and relationships that would be lost if not recorded in this blog. My objective is to record these observations and develop new ones relating to the coal industry and coal marketing. I aim to minimise the text within each blog as much as possible to minimise reading time, so please email me if you have any questions. I hope you find the blog interesting and of value.
Cheers,
Anthony