Working in the oil and gas industry for over 16 years, Praviin Dudle has been fascinated with the analytic and process optimizing power of data science. Dealing with data in only Excel Sheets and PDF till now, he wanted to upskill in data science to manage and troubleshoot issues more efficiently and, therefore, enrolled for the Global Certificate in Data Science & AI (GCDAI) program at Accredian.
In this interview, let’s see what is his take on the impact of data science on the oil and gas industry and how his learning experience has been at Accredian.
Question 1: Which program & batch are you part of at Accredian & tell us more about your current work profile?
Praviin: I am part of the Global Certificate in Data Science & AI (GCDAI) program, May 2020. I have been associated with Dakota oil refining company as a manager of operations and process.
My work profile includes performing 3D Model Review HAZOP, developing ESOP operating manuals, vendor management, recruitment of the people for operations and process and providing training to the different batches that are from Nigeria.
I am also into developing different kinds of documents, interview valves, pre-commissioning, commissioning, and stabilization of the refinery units.
Question 2: Walk us through your career journey & what got you interested in Data Science & Machine Learning?
Praviin: I started my career with Supreme Petrochem Limited as a graduate engineer trainee in the year 2000. I learned their operations from the field and the panel, and I learned the different processes in the polystyrene manufacturing plant.
I have been involved in the start to shut down and troubleshooting of the plant. And after working for three and a half years, I switched my career to Reliance Industries Limited, Jamnagar, in 2007. There I worked for FSU Plod as a manager and I have been involved for MCC plant startup shut down and troubleshooting.
After working for more than three years, I switched my career to HPCL – Mittal Energy Limited. There I worked for the FSU plant from project final phase to pre commissioning, commissioning and stabilization. After stabilizing the plant, I was given the role of refinery superintendent.
So in this role, I monitor the entire complex in view of reducing fuel loss, optimizing processes, reducing utility losses, and troubleshooting. Also, I coordinated the different plants per cell during startup and shutdown.
After that, I started my career at Dakota oil refining company in 2018. I am working here as a manager operations and process. I’m doing the activities such as 3d Model Review HAZOP, and developing documents in view of pre commissioning commissioning and simulation.
What attracted me more to me in the data science career is that it tells us how to manage the data in a proper field. So that I can devalue the good outcome and profit and can prioritize the units by optimizing the unit parameters, processes, utilities and reducing the furnaces.
I have lots of data in the form of Excel sheets and PDF files. And I came to know that after analyzing the data in a proper way, I can troubleshoot the problem in a productive and reactive way. So that’s why I enrolled for this program.
Question 3: What all tools and packages in Data Science & Machine Learning have you mastered in your Data Science & AI program at Accredian so far?
Praviin: I have mastered the skill set of exploratory data analysis (EDA) by using Python packages of NumPy, Pandas Matplotlib, and Seaborn. I have learned how to clean the data and bring it in a usable form.
Thereafter, I mastered the skill set in plotting the diagrams in the form of pie chart boxplot, KD and bar charts, and analyzing the data to bring the desired outcome. Recently, I have mastered machine learning foundation models of linear regression, logistic regression, decision tree and random forest classifier.
Question 4: What were some of the initial challenges when you got started on your Data Science journey and how did you overcome it?
Praviin: Being a non-coder, the initial challenges that I faced during my data science were in implementing codes with respect to correct structuring and proper syntaxes. I overcame these problems after a lot of practice and I came to know that we are required to memorize the codes. As most of the codes are repetitive in nature, we just have to know where to apply the different types of codes.
Question 5: Who is your favorite faculty at Accredian and what did you learn from him the Most?
Praviin: Suchit Majumdar is my favorite faculty at Accredian. He is very calm and patient while answering any question in the class. I learned NumPy and Pandas techniques from him in my data science journey at Accredian.
Question 6: What is the goal of Data Science?
Praviin: The goal of data science is improvising the profits in any organization by arranging the data in a structured way through data analysis and devising strategies.
Question 7: In your view, how has Data Science evolved in the last few years?
Praviin: Data Science has been recognized as a field of statistics written for two decades. But due to inefficient technology, given its processing speed and storage, it didn’t find a place in different domains.
But as technology progressed in the last ten years, the processing speed and storage capacity improved, data volume augmented, and was more efficiently stored. And after that, the importance of data science grew as it penetrated the fields like healthcare, financing, retail, and telecom businesses in the last few years.
Right now, data science is penetrating other businesses, too, such as the oil and gas refinery sector, metal refining or processing, environmental regulations, etc. So with time, data science will progress in different fields as and when more skilled professionals get involved in such domains.
Question 8: What are the current trends in Data Science that you are most excited about?
Praviin: The current trends in data science that I am most excited about are autonomous cars driven without drivers, and in which one can feed the desired dictation points without any unsafe practices. And another one is natural language processing that helps in the voice identification of criminals, offenders, or cheaters.
Question 9: Which are some of the blogs that you follow?
Praviin: I follow data science blogs and groups on LinkedIn, Data Science Academy, Data Science Central, Data Science Learners Community as well as Accredian Blog for data science interviews.
Question 10: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Data Science?
Praviin: Data Science is a very good and unique field in the coming days. And whatever domain you are in, managing and dealing data in a proper way will be the requirement of the future. So data science will definitely help you in excelling in your career while working in your own domain.
This was a conversation with one of our GCDAI students – Praviin Gangaram Dudle.
For more interesting student interviews, check out Accredian Spotlight.
