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Data Management & e-Business - 6 December 2006 at Microsoft, ReadingOver 50 delegates attended the e-Business Event at Microsoft. Although defence related, the event proved to be another success. See the full synopsis below. If you did not have time to complete a questionnaire, you may download a word version and return by email. Thank you to Microsoft, event sponsors, Trillium and ASG and also to the delegates - we hope you found the topic interesting and the information useful. Marc Ottmueller, Rolls-Royce plc David Longhurst, Ministry of Defence
DAMA UK e-Business and Metadata Seminar at Microsoft Reading - Synopsis by Andy VoyseyA 2 strand seminar firstly highlighted the Aerospace and Defence Sector’s approach to the e-Business challenges presented by the need to collaborate globally with their partners, supply chains and customers. Although a number of other sectors are more advanced in the use of electronic business techniques than the aerospace sector the security challenges for this area are generally more complex as are the regulations governing the handling of information. Rolls-Royce plc, Exostar and the Ministry of Defence gave an insight as to how they are tackling the increasing need to bring all elements of the supply chain together in a unified process to allow work sharing and order management activities to take place efficiently and for prompt payment for delivered goods. Marc Ottmueller started the day with a description of how Rolls-Royce conducts its business cycle with SAP at the heart of it and the links with Exostar for its supply chain management activities. The aim now is to bring the non-automated aspects of its relationships with its suppliers and customers into the automated process which will then deliver efficiency benefits to all participants. Ludo Van Vooren took the opportunity to explain the Exostar model which covers collaboration, sourcing and procurement and where the future may lie. The major objective is to bring together all elements of the global supply chain to allow more effective transactions to take place. He used the example of the Boeing 787 where components were sourced from all over the world and how the Boeing supply chain had evolved from one of supra-control of all elements to just the management of a number of key assembly organisations which in turn handled the control of its elements of the supply chain through a 3rd tier of integrators. He then looked to the future of how federated collaboration may work which will allow total information visibility within the supply chain. This should allow each organisation to fully understand how its element impacts the supply of a product to a customer thus driving out inefficiencies in the manufacturing and supply processes. Finally David Longhurst, as the MOD end customer, gave an overview of the Defence e-Commerce Service and its probable future direction. With the DIS requiring improved through-life relationships with industry the DECS programme is seen as an important element for underpinning the collaboration requirements and e-Procurement. It has been recognised that in the latter significant work is required to regain Industry confidence that it will deliver – with only some 10% of material by value being purchased through the service – the target being 80%+. They were actively looking at how to leverage the Exostar technology to bring a more cohesive service across Defence and to close the gap. He also touched on the work being done in the Transatlantic Secure Collaboration Programme and the impact this will have on DECS as the secure portal and shared working environment moving forward. Chris Wykes from Detica then presented the second strand as he provided an insight as to the future direction and increasing active role of meta data within Enterprises especially in Business Warehouses and its importance to the future of information quality. Meta data will have a pivotal role in systems development and will be key to improving Information quality. He highlighted the importance of data stewardship, an area that MOD are looking at, and the creation of a meta data driven balanced scorecards to highlight information quality issues to management. He then covered the evolution of metadata from the late 60s where the need was recognised to the likelihood of the next decade when enterprise systems will be driven by the meta data; where the concept of passive and active meta data will become the norm. Passive meta data is meta data that is collected but not used and degrades whereas active meta data will be the new foundation or building block for future system development and should ensure more rapid and more reliable implementations. The principle is that using meta data driven development should reduce the lines of code created and therefore increase reliability and reduce quality problems. Data cleansing will become an automatic activity within the meta data processing cycle. Furthermore, the way in which the meta data model is created and its associated code generator should ensure a consistent reuse capability. Andy Voysey, e-Business, DAMA UK
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