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Introducing a Technology Intelligence System

Principles and Approaches to a Knowledge-Based System for a Technology-Based (Chemical) Company
From: Wolfgang Runge: Innovation, Research and Technology Intelligence in the Chemical Industry Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, 2006

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

DBMS - Database Management System ETL - Extract, Transfer, Load I&CT Information & Communication Technology IT Information Technology KDD - Knowledge Discovery in Databases KDT Knowledge Discovery in Text Databases ROC Report-of-Call (minutes of customer visits) SOA Service-Oriented Architecture XSLT Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation XML Extensible Markup Language
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Intelligence in Technology-Oriented Companies

Information & Communication Technology (I&CT): supporting systemic innovation via intelligence processes and intelligence products. Intelligence is knowledge and foreknowledge of the world around us - the prelude to Presidential decision and action (CIA Definition). Business world: competitive intelligence Technology Intelligence (which, how, when; by whom) technology meets market (demand); business-sensitive information about external scientific and technological developments that can affect a companys competitive position.
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Technology Intelligence System Objectives

Serve the company to enable the businesses to create value by supporting strategy development, decision-making and action and accelerating the delivery of the right or new offerings and contributing to new business developments by
tracking technology developments and identifying technical and commercial opportunities; identifying current and future markets*) and demands; tracking competitive technologies, competitors and customers; identifying external resources (R&D partnerships, external experts, etc.) to optimize utilization of competencies and resources; combining existing information and knowledge into new knowledge and discovering new knowledge through analysis, insights and inferences, and communication; supporting idea generation; sharing and leveraging corporate-internal know-how

using an information requirements oriented single-point-of-access.

*) Includes constraints in terms of regulatory and legislative aspects.
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Benefits and Value Creation: Avoid Surprises and Maximize Resource Utilization
Accelerates value created by R&D through leading and maintaining specialized computing solutions for operational, tactical and strategic decision-making and action. Monitors and assesses technology developments and competitors and customers activities as well as markets. Optimizes R&D resources (makes existing firm know-how shareable across businesses; increased problem-solving potential, utilizes external expertise) Increases ROI (return on investment) through re-use, re-packaging and re-purposing of information and knowledge and re-using existing solutions; Avoids re-inventing the wheel, costly lawsuits. Uncovers new sources of revenue (e.g. license- in/out) Inspires new ideas and opportunity identification (e.g. via solution transfer, gap identification, across-business fertilization)

Copyright 2006 Wolfgang Runge

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Implementing an R&D-Led TI-System

People-orientation, a man-machine system. A total system concept (conceptualized TI-system plus interwoven systems, in particular, an R&D system and/or innovation system). Management and stakeholder support. Remember: People Support What They Help Create, also on the operational level An appropriate conceptual model: information types vs. sources Create a proprietary system (customizing off-the-shelf product(s)). Learning and training must emphasize how to use the overall TIsystem, utilizing the interconnections of the various modules and tools and in this way support activities and processes rather than mastering only the functionalities of the individual components (databases and tools). Use information technology architecture approaches building on the firms I&CT infrastructure. Derive business architecture from technology intelligence organization Use open, scalable, integrateable and modular designs. Follow evolutionary prototyping.
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Transforming a Business Architecture into a TI-System

Company Knowledge/ Intelligence Firms I&CT Infrastructure

For instance, INTRAnet, network operating system, standard software, Communication tools
Customized Developments Buy and/or build

Business Strategy, Technology Strategy

Knowledge/Intelligence Organization

Firms I&CT Requirements

External Information

Fits

Company Solution

Key external source for technical information: STN International

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Existing Assets, Externally Available Components or Services

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TI-Systems and IT-Systems

Creating a business-driven IT-system requires that system designers and stakeholders understand the firms strategic context. Strategic context: What business demands; roles and relationships are critical. Business units may be able to coordinate and leverage some approaches and sharing some information resources, but keeping others autonomous and private. Identify IT principles: How the firm leads or follows in the IT (I&CT) deployment in its industry. The firms attitude and views of I&CT: none, or
Utility (to reduce cost emphasizing existing processes) Dependent (investing primarily to current strategies and IT offerings) Enabling (investment flexibility to respond to longer-term goals and organizational innovation change the way how we work to sustain technical innovation and growth)

Clarify the firms approach to IT infrastructure. Standardized or heterogeneous hard- and software, networking.
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Innovation and R&D Activities, Objects or Processes to be Supported by I&CT Applications

Innovation Activities and Levels Individual Cooperative Project Access, Load,

Storage
Current awareness (technical, commercial); prior art; competitive products tracking; retrieval Communication, dissemination; discussions; conferencing Customer contacts (minutes); corrective action management (customers); customer profiling, (Database of Needs) Project proposal; project stage reviews, postlaunch review Search, browse, navigate

Analysis
KDD, data mining

Opportunity detection

Co-authoring (for instance, technical reports, minutes of customer visits, conference attendance)

(Computer) workspaces and repositories for data, information (text and graphics) for individuals or groups Document (content) management

KDT, text mining

(Personal) information management

File/information sharing (data: text plus graphic)

Project-portfolio management; project (technical) reports; patents

Reporting

Idea management

Workflow management

Project management; decision logging

Application integration

Company I&CT Infrastructure

Support

by a technology intelligence system embedded in an innovation system

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Major Requirements and Features

The system is text document-centric focusing on information (elements) and data; All information categories are handled which means text, numbers, graphics, chemical formulas etc.; Various types of information (technical and market/commercial) are included; there is an emphasis on patents; The proportion of external to internal information is ca. 80:20 (capture from external resources versus internally available or created); A very small part of overall data/information is updated or manually added (inserted), whether it is relational data (for instance, laboratory data) or not; Input of information and knowledge is controlled (by humans): only evaluated/selected and preferentially classified information enters the system (no bulk dump down). The selection process uses business value criteria: the value of the content for current or future research and the firms competitive position and the value to be archived for search and retrieval, problem-solving and re-use. Content can be subjected directly to analysis (KDT, implicit knowledge discovery) Capture, data exchange or interoperability need not proceed synchronously (in real time), it is mainly asynchronous; The change of content over time is slow (archival nature rather than transactional), but important changes occur some time that must be taken into account (for instance, company renaming, mergers and acquisitions, or data format changes in the external resources
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A TI Systems Architecture Related to a Portal Structure

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A Conceptual Information Model: Information Types and Sources

Major or minor importance of the particular source for an information type is indicated by the degree of shading (less shading = less important as a resource). Copyright 2006 The Dow Chemical Company 12

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Technical Architecture: Web-Based Database-Centric Approach with Data Warehouse Orientation Basically, a Two-Tier Architecture:
Web (access and presentation, post-processing after export), Database (business logic, workflow, knowledge layer with metadata and ontology, data capture, access layer; database classes)

Towards a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Native XML database (and XML-enabled databases) XML export and XSLT post-processing Windows-oriented (user interface; office software integration) Date Warehouse Orientation (Information Warehouse)
Syntactic and semantic data/information consistencies Integrated analysis modules (ETL) and exports to external analysis tools
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Product Architecture: InterHost 3000 XML Database Management System

Scalable, open and integrateable Web-based DBMS; native XML (not relational) full-text database; access to and use of various information sources using a single MS Windows-like user-interface. Data and information input and edits, input via forms and selective and scheduled information capture through crawling from external and internal resources (download and system integration) Integration with a Microsoft Office, e-mail (Outlook) and MS SQL Server database infrastructure Analysis and visualization modules as well as various reporting functionalities (tables etc.) Retrieval language is compatible with Messenger language of STN International Cooperation, in particular, an automatic workflow process of patent capture and evaluation as well as discussion forums Grabber to capture patent documents (usually available as PDFfiles) free-of-charge from the Web sites of the patent offices Thesaurus and ontology (for multifile searching) functionalities
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Information-Related Components of a TI-System

Information Types and Database Classes

Discussion Forums Direct Knowledge Access External Technologies

Public or/and private/controlled access Predefined Concept Searching Patents, technical literature, citations Firms Technical Reports Information, contact management

Push Services; Web Crawl

Internal Technologies
External Experts Industry Events

Information capture from external resources, assessment; automatic integration

News (commercial, regulatory; etc.; competitors, customers) Companies, markets, technologies, chemicals (.doc, .ppt, .xls) Business ROCs; controlled access; document forms, e-mail Competitive products performance; product usage citations Patents (USPTO, EPO, ; full text weekly; more Web resources) Multifile search; predefined clusters for applications, businesses

Industry Reports
Customers

Products/Processes
Web Crawling Database Clusters Web Links
Extract, Transfer, Load (ETL)

Relevant Web sites, other database accessible via http

Analyze Knowledge Discovery in Text Databases (KDT), text mining Multifile Searching (across all database types) Training & Pilots
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Training and new development previews (demos) and tests

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An Example
Wolfgang Runge INNOVATION, RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY INTELLIGENCE IN THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY Integrated Business, Technical and Systems Approaches Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, 2006 (http://www.baufachinformation.de/artikel.jsp?v=222645) Chapter 7.3 Outlining a Database-Centric Intelligence System Implementation

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