Case Study: Creating a Federated Data & AI Platform at Downer
As one of Australia’s largest integrated services providers, Downer operates across a diverse portfolio of business units, each with its own priorities, systems, and delivery pace. While this structure supported local agility, it also created fragmentation, duplication, and barriers to collaboration at an enterprise level. To realise the full potential of its data and AI strategy, Downer needed a new approach, one that would unify its federated model without compromising autonomy.
insightfactory.ai partnered with Downer to design and implement the Federated Factory architecture. By combining decentralised agility with centralised governance, the solution created a secure and scalable Data & AI Hub that enabled business units to innovate independently while sharing enterprise data seamlessly and safely.
"The insightfactory.ai Federated Factory has provided a significant new capability for Downer, enabling us to run a complete data hub across our organisation in a standardised way. It is not only bringing in better governance and higher velocity, but also unlocking AI capability for the organisation.”
Nicola Dorling, Group CIO
The Problem
Like many large-scale enterprises, Downer had evolved as a federation of significant business units, each operating with its own priorities, systems, and pace of delivery. Over time, this independence resulted in the gradual build-up of isolated technology and data footprints across the organisation. What emerged was a fragmented and inconsistent technology landscape, where duplication of data ingestion and replication became commonplace. The absence of a unified framework made it difficult to govern and efficiently share data between business units and with the group function.
This created governance challenges, with disparate platforms and uneven controls undermining confidence in enterprise-wide standards. Delivery was often delayed, either through dependence on central teams or the inefficiencies of disconnected systems. Most critically, without a consistent and standardised approach to data, Downer lacked the enabling capability to unlock AI and Agentic use cases at scale. The result was an environment where aligning data strategy, managing costs, delivering enterprise-wide business intelligence, and operationalising AI-driven automation all became more difficult than they needed to be.
The Solution
To address these challenges, insightfactory.ai deployed its Federated Factory architecture, a multi-instance implementation of the Insight Factory platform designed to balance autonomy with enterprise-wide cohesion. Under this model, each business unit operates its own dedicated “Factory” instance, giving them the freedom to manage their platforms, projects, and pace of delivery. These instances are interconnected through a governed and secure data mesh, allowing data to be ingested once and then shared seamlessly across the organisation without duplication. Together, these instances form the Downer Data & AI Hub, a unified yet flexible foundation for innovation.
This architecture combines decentralised agility with centralised governance, enabling business units to act independently while still conforming to common standards. The integration of Databricks Unity Catalog ensures that data sharing is secure, governed, and explainable across the mesh. By standardising the technology stack, the deployment reduces fragmentation and complexity, creating a consistent foundation across all business units. At the same time, the architecture supports a wide range of capabilities, from BI and advanced AI to Agentic frameworks giving each business unit the tools and flexibility to innovate while leveraging enterprise-wide data in a controlled and efficient way.
The Value Delivered
The Federated Factory model has fundamentally transformed Downer’s data and AI landscape, unlocking new levels of capability and efficiency across the enterprise. By enabling data to be ingested once and securely shared across the mesh, the model eliminated the duplication and inefficiencies that previously plagued the organisation. Business units are now able to accelerate delivery by working independently, no longer constrained by bottlenecks in a central hub for ingestion or processing.
At the same time, the architecture strengthened governance by embedding consistent security, lineage, and access controls across all factories. This ensured that data remained not only accessible but also explainable and secure at every level. With a standardised and scalable foundation in place, Downer is rapidly enabling new BI, AI, and Agentic solutions across the enterprise, empowering business units to innovate while remaining aligned with enterprise standards. The result has been improved collaboration across business units, with shared data resources accessible without compromising governance or security.
This engagement showcases how insightfactory.ai helps complex, federated enterprises unify their data landscape while preserving the speed, autonomy, and innovation required by individual business units.
