Model Building: The Power of Process Standardisation with Paragon's Modeller

(second article in a series of four) 

Introduction 

Consider a scenario where a team embarks on a project without rules, structure, or a plan. Chaos, inefficiency, and errors are practically guaranteed. Now, imagine asking five model builders within the same team to develop and specific model with no guidelines or rules to follow. The result? You'd likely get five very different models, and managing risks and potential errors would be a monumental task. This is where process standardisation comes in, ensuring that your model-building process is efficient and delivers top-quality, consistent results. 

Unpacking Process Standardisation

Process standardisation is the key to efficiency whilst reducing the risk of errors or re-work. It involves establishing clear procedures and best practices for specific tasks and processes. In the context of model building, it means defining a consistent methodology for data preparation, model design, feature selection, model training, model validation, and deployment. This consistency is crucial for ensuring quality, reliability, and efficiency in your model-building efforts. 

Why is process standardisation important? Here are some key benefits: 

Consistency and Quality Assurance: Standardised processes ensure that each model is developed and reviewed using the same criteria and methods, leading to improved quality assurance and reduced errors. 

Efficiency and Time Savings: Standardisation streamlines operations, reducing time wasted on troubleshooting issues due to inconsistent practices. This increased efficiency leads to faster model development. 

Risk Mitigation: Standardisation helps identify and address potential issues early in the process, reducing the likelihood of costly errors or compliance violations. 

Scalability: Standardised processes can scale with your business, ensuring that the same rules and procedures apply whether you're building one model or a hundred.  

Paragon's Modeller: Your Trusted Ally 

To implement process standardisation effectively, you need the right tools. Paragon's Modeller streamlines and standardises your model development process. Whether developing a couple of models or a couple of hundred models every year, the following standardised processes built in Modeller are invaluable: 

Model Design Templates 

Modeller offers model design templates that serve as blueprints for different model types. Templates guide users in setting up the right predictors, outcomes, test and train samples, and sample weights. This ensures that models are built consistently and efficiently. 

Feature Selection 

Modeller’s "Field Reducer" tool automates the feature selection process based on your parameters, saving you time and ensuring consistency across all models. It's rigorous, transparent, and repeatable. 

Within features, the "Autogroup" function provides class-leading grouping and smoothing of your variables, setting the stage for more in-depth adjustments. 

Model Training 

Whether developing logistic regression, CHAID, CART, Random Forest, XGBoost, or other model types the structured and parameterised methods coded in Modeller provide the user with complete control, ease of iterations and transparency. All work completed is captured with a complete audit trail and version control meaning that choices, decisions and versions are all documented and accessible.   

Validation 

Model validation becomes straightforward with Modeller. Train, test, and out-of-time data samples are all easily defined. Runbook reporting is available with a single click. Standardised model validation reporting suites can be reused for each model build, making validation against defined criteria a breeze.  

Deployment 

Modeller’s built-in model export functions deploy direct to your scoring/decision engine or in a variety of coding formats. which are fully tested and maintained. This ensures a tried and trusted, standardised process is adopted between the modelling and deployment teams. 

Documentation and Reporting 

Modeller simplifies the documentation of model-building processes and results. We’ve extended Microsoft Word to import directly from Modeller, offering consistent reporting that provides insights into model performance and adherence to standard procedures. 

What are the alternatives? 

Open-source programming tools such as R and Python have become an option for model development over the last few years, as programmers and modellers develop and share scripts and packages to perform modelling steps and processes.  This approach comes with risks and warnings.  While open-source Python has its strengths, it also brings challenges, including compatibility issues, lack of support, security concerns, and a steep learning curve.  We delve deeper into these challenges in a future article. 

Conclusion 

In the world of model building, process standardisation is your ticket to efficiency, reliability, and scalability. Implementing process standardisation with open-source tools can be complex and manually intensive, making purpose-built solutions like Paragon's Modeller (with the ability to run Python from within the tool if required) a valuable asset in your modelling journey.  With clear guidelines and the power of Paragon's Modeller, you're guaranteed consistency, efficiency, risk mitigation, and scalability. Say goodbye to chaos and hello to a well-structured model-building process, paving the way for business success and profitability.