Data Visualization, Geographical Information Systems, and Virtual Reality

Data visualization refers to technologies that support visualizing and interpretation of data. This may include GIS (geographical information systems), GUI (graphical user interface), digital images, dimensional presentations, virtual reality, videos, and animation. These visual tools can identify trends in corporate and market data that can provide a company with a competitive advantage. By using these visual analysis technologies, management, engineers, and other professionals are able to see problems that went undetected by prior methods.

Data visualization is becoming more and more popular for decision support. Visualization software packages offer users self-guided exploration and visual analysis of large amounts of data.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are computer-based systems for capturing, storing, modeling, retrieving, checking, integrating, manipulating, analyzing, and displaying geographically referenced data with digitized maps. More information is available on GIS at the following web site: www.gpsy.com/maps.
The areas of target marketing are growing rapidly and organizations can easily segment a population using GIS. Many companies have already benefited by the intelligent organization of data within a GIS framework to support decision making and design of alternative strategies.
GIS software used to be very expensive, but since the '90s, the cost has decreased dramatically. GIS data are available from multiple sources such as government sources.

Virtual Reality (VR) is interactive, computer-generated, three-dimensional graphics delivered to the user through a head-mounted display. With VR, a person 'believes' that what they are doing is real, even though it is artificial. Because more than one person can interact in the same artificial environment, VR is a powerful medium for communication. VR can help financial decision makers better understand data by using visual, spatial, and aural immersion virtual systems. In the future, VR use is expected to be extensive in e-commerce marketing. VR is just beginning to enter into the business world, but expected to increase significantly in the near future to become commonplace

Pragmatic Approaches to Knowledge Management

The following is a link to an article that I found very relevant on the topic of knowledge management. The article is called Pragmatic Approaches to Knowledge Management,
by Ron Friedmann.



http://www.llrx.com/features/pragmatickm.htm



The article points out the fact that Knowledge Management (KM) is one of the bigger frustration of companies, particularly law firms. While KM can be frustrating, it is vital to increasing profitability for a company. Profits increase by improving realization, utilization, and client retention while reducing malpractice risks. The following figure outlines the different types of knowledge management

Approaches to Knowledge Management

There are three primary approaches to knowledge management:

1. The Process Approach attempts to codify organizational knowledge through formalized controls, processes, and technologies. The organizations which adopt this approach are able to implement explicit policies governing how knowledge is to be stored, collected, and disseminated throughout the organization. This approach also uses information technologies to enhance the quality and speed of knowledge creation and distribution in the organizations. Intranets, data warehousing, knowledge repositories, decision support tools, and groupware are examples of technologies seen in the process approach.

2. The Practice Approach to knowledge management assumes that a great deal of organizational knowledge is tacit in nature and that formal controls, processes, and technologies are not suitable for transmitting this type of understanding. Communities of Practice (COP) are groups of individual with a common professional interest who work together informally. These communities allow individuals to collaborate directly, sharing experiences and teaching each other. These collaborative computing methods help people to communicate. This approach is most often adapted by companies that provide customers highly customized solutions to unique problems. However, the environment and nature of the problems that occur with this approach are extremely dynamic.

3. Best Practices are activities and methods that the most effective organizations use to operate and manage various functions. In the past, knowledge repositories would just list best practices and would make them available within the firm. However, knowledge is now used throughout a firm more efficiently and has a wide-ranging impact because knowledge repositories are now electronic and Web-accessible.

4. Hybrid: In the real world, knowledge management initiatives can involve both process and practice approaches.

Facilitating IOS and Global Systems: From Demand-Driven Networks to RFID

Historically, the supply chain has been driven by producers and manufacturers "driving products to the market". The dominant action was then to forecast demand, make-to-stock, and push products down stream to end users. This resulted in businesses having no real view into the true market demand for a product. Items could then go from a situation of under stock to overstock resulting in the bullwhip effect (erratic changes in orders).



Demand-driven supply networks (DDSNs) are driven from the front by consumer demand. DDSN does not completely remove the ability of a company to push the product to the market. Instead, DDSN says that companies in a supply chain will work more closely to shape market demand and promote the sharing and collaboration of information. If companies do this, they will have a greater and more timely view of demand. The main purpose of this collaboration is to better position all players within the supply chain to more closely follow market demand, allowing them to produce in tandem what the market wants.



The following are some of the benefits of DDSN:

• Provides customer-centric approach (opposed to a factory-centric approach)


• Lower supply chain costs


• Reduced days of inventory


• Improved cash-to-cash performance


• More accurate and detailed demand forecasting


• Probabilistic optimization is used to better deal with uncertainties


• All participants in the supply chain are able to take part in shaping demand, minimizing the bullwhip effect.


• DDSN capabilities provide for agility, adaptability and alignment

Real-time, Demand-driven Manufacturing (DDM) provides customers with exactly what they want when and where they want it. This is possible because of the effective communication between the supply chain and the factory floor. Partnerships are developed which must be focused on reducing costs.

A new solution to supply chain problems is RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). RFID tags eliminate the need to count inventories and the visibility of inventories is provided to all business partners. RFID tags are only about the size of a pinhead but they contain an antenna and a chip that contains an electronic product code (EPC). Recent technological innovations have provided the price of the tags to plummet and their performance to improve, enabling them to be more widely used. While RFID tags have many benefits, the cost of an RFID system may be too high for smaller companies.

Support for Business-to-Business (B2B) supply chains can be provided by electronic exchanges which can be either private (one buyer and many sellers, or one seller and many buyers) or public (many sellers and buyers). Both exchanges are done by IOS. B2B exchanges are used mainly to facilitate trading among companies. In contrast, a hub is used to facilitate communication and coordination among business partners frequently along the supply chain. Hubs are structured in such a way that each partner can access a Web site (portal) which is used to exchange information. B2B hubs are popular in global trading. Because the B2B landscape is huge, the use of Directory Services is needed to help buyers and sellers manage the task of potential partners. These B2B information portals are having difficulties generating revenue, so they are starting to charge a fee for additional services. An example of one of these B2B portals is MyBoeingFleet.com (you should check it out).

Information Management: The Value of an Enterprise Data Model

The following link is to the article by Mehdi Hatami, Information Management: The Value of an Enterprise Data Model, that outlines the steps a company should take to develop an enterprise data model.

http://esj.com/Business_Intelligence/article.aspx?EditorialsID=8877

Managing and delivering information is very challenging. This challenge is intensified by the presence of complex combinations of applications. Hatami points out the fact that heterogeneous rather than homogeneous technology environments are now the norm.

Data has become crucial to maintain efficiency and cost reduction. Data is increasingly used for strategic and tactical decision making which can be transformed into greater returns and mature business capabilities. For these reasons, it is very important that data be carefully managed. To do this, a company must fully understand what data is.

This article presents steps that a company can take to manage its data in the most efficient way.