Public Sector

A government agency of a major European country was struggling with the increased complexity of the labour market data. Among the problems: the need to continuously integrate new data sources and accommodate demands of heterogeneous research projects.

The agency advises political actors at all levels and provides national labour market data to internal and external researchers.

The d-fine team helped the client design and implement a data management platform. Its innovative architecture allows the agency to easily integrate new sources and quickly respond to the changing demands of researchers. We further developed a data dictionary – an AI-based advanced analytics module – giving researchers access to semi- and unstructured data, such as documents and job advertisements.

Throughout the project we worked closely with both employees and senior executives at the agency, ensuring that everyone remained committed to the project and that no important requirement was overlooked.

Shared mobility services are now part of the urban mobility offer and the vehicles have become an integral part of the cityscape. In order for a municipality to exploit the full potential of shared mobility services, various challenges need to be mastered – from monitoring vehicle fleets and analyzing usage to actively managing the service.

d-fine supports cities and municipalities in developing tailored solutions for operational and strategic mobility planning. Based on mobility data standards such as MDS and GBFS, we design the analyses and visualizations, e.g. as dashboards, to answer the administration's individual questions about vehicles, usage and contract compliance with real-time data.

The implementation also includes the development of an urban mobility data interface to actively publish and enforce rules in terms of mobility planning.

Customers demand punctuality, speed and flexibility from public rail transport, while competition between railroads is intensifying. A complex, heterogeneous IT landscape not only represents a cost and effort driver for rail companies, but also poses risks in operation and management. In particular, companies with historically grown areas of responsibility often find structures with a multitude of systems and manual interfaces.

d-fine supports rail transport customers by recording and reviewing the system landscape. In a top-down analysis, starting from the business processes, the degree of digitalization and media discontinuities along the processes become clear. In a second step, the individual applications are evaluated bottom-up to determine their technical and business fit. In close collaboration and in line with the IT strategy, we derive the system landscape of the future and show the paths for transformation. Here, the focus is on consolidating high-maintenance, small-scale systems in order to eliminate risks from outdated, non-scalable systems and thus set the course for a future-proof, digital infrastructure.

Together with local energy suppliers, we have developed a concept for a hydrogen supply infrastructure for a German metropolitan region that networks all hydrogen producers, distributors and consumers in the region. The project is designed to enable a transport turnaround, lower market entry barriers and promote the ramp-up of hydrogen. More than 10 companies from logistics, public transport, inland shipping and aviation are participating as partners. The findings will be incorporated into subsequent energy system modeling and will help in the optimal development of a hydrogen infrastructure in the region over the next few years.

We have developed an interactive project map where current and planned hydrogen market activities in the region can be located and detailed descriptions can be viewed. Based on a questionnaire as well as individual interviews with partner companies, we were able to record partner-specific infrastructure requirements in order to take them into account in further planning. We estimated the site-specific hydrogen demand in the region under different ramp-up scenarios and visualized it in an interactive heat map for the years 2030, 2035 and 2040. Based on these findings, we defined selection criteria and identified suitable sites for the development of a sustainable hydrogen refueling infrastructure, including in particular H2 refueling stations.

Current European regulations in the areas of energy, transport and logistics focus on the development of data infrastructures and artificial intelligence applications. At a national level, important requirements for data strategy, AI strategy and IT strategy are specified. Their implementation poses new challenges for public authorities.

We are helping a major German government agency design a future-proof IT strategy. Among others, we consider questions on data processing: Where can we raise synergies through cooperation with other European countries? What services can be outsourced? Where is it appropriate to use third-party software?

Our team works closely with the client’s employees at all levels to deliver a strategy tailored to the unique nature of the institution. This feeds into decision papers for consultations at the national and European level.

Increasing energy efficiency is a key success factor for the transition to clean energy and is a high priority for the European Commission. As a member of a pan-European consortium, we support the Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group (EEFIG). EEFIG’s current policy focus is on the European Green Deal. Its work is providing a significant contribution in accelerating private finance to energy efficiency.

For example, it aims to increase the attractiveness of investments by private investors in energy efficiency improvements for residential real estate. Our team supports EEFIG by analyzing risks of such investments in order to strengthen the risk awareness of financiers and investors.

A major German NGO delivering humanitarian aid projects worldwide asked d-fine to help improve its risk management framework to meet best-practice standards.

Our analysis found that the organization lacked robust processes. We advised the client to unify and standardize the processes and create multiple lines of controls for key steps. Our support on the project includes setting up well-defined processes and risk mitigation measures.

The project will allow the client to achieve both better operational performance and high levels of transparency and accountability – resulting in more satisfied employees, lower costs and secure program funding.