Causal inference offers a principled way to estimate the effects of interventions—a critical need in industrial settings where decisions directly impact costs and performance. This talk presents a case study from Saint-Gobain, in collaboration with Inria, where we applied causal inference methods to production and quality data to reduce raw material usage without compromising product quality.
We’ll walk through each step of a causal analysis: building a causal graph in collaboration with domain experts, identifying confounders, working with continuous treatments, and using open-source tools such as DoWhy, EconML, and DAGitty. The talk is aimed at data scientists with basic ML experience, looking to apply causal thinking to real-world, non-academic problems.