1996 Electronics Industry Environmental Roadmap - Civil and ...

Information and Knowledge Systems
The most fundamental requirements for higher level decision support are the integration of the
information in those databases into a meaningful structure—an industry-wide ontology 3 that provides
a framework within which data can be accessed. The ontology provides a common foundation
to which the specific data elements of individual databases can be mapped (even if the
specific semantics of individual databases may not precisely match), queries can be executed to
multiple databases, and common information identified and retrieved. An equally important step
is the establishment of accepted metrics that can be applied to support decision-making.
Important industry-wide metrics provide quantitative means of measurement and comparisons for
effective analyses. These metrics provide users with accepted guidelines for assessment and
evaluation, whether in terms of cost, emissions, performance, or a wide range of other potential
decision areas.
It is here, in the development of an industry-wide ontology and the establishment of industrywide
metrics, that the need for collaboration is most clearly evident. These are inherently multicompany,
and multi-industry, activities. If multiple ontologies or widely varying metrics are
created, they give rise to an environment in which fragmented networks of organizations may
find themselves competing with one another for the dominance of their particular approach,
forsaking the efficiencies and economies that a true industry-wide approach to the environmental
information infrastructure can provide.
Once consensus industry ontology and metrics have been established, reliable analysis becomes
possible. In this regard, the information infrastructure can provide access to tools (query, analysis,
reporting, and data navigation tools) that support analysis and offer decision-makers a variety
of reliable approaches to processing and evaluating information. These tools are provided by
multiple vendors, with the information infrastructure either identifying how to obtain the tools or,
in the ideal case, providing an electronic means for downloading, testing, and ultimately
acquiring the tools that most effectively support the decisions in a particular company.
Many such tools are already available. Perhaps more importantly, new decision support tools
will emerge when the capabilities of an integrated industry information infrastructure supported
by a standard ontology and agreed-upon metrics becomes reality. Development of many of these
tools provide opportunities for collaboration—whether by companies in the same market
segment collaborating to accelerate the availability of tools or through the collaboration of
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers—as well as a rich opportunity for
entrepreneurial activity as new companies grow to provide tools that will be offered across the
network.
The significance of these envisioned tools lies in their ability to automate the intelligent analysis
of the burgeoning stream of information as more and more becomes readily accessible. Such
intelligent assistance will include transparent, yet dynamic, assembly and composition of content
for its tailored presentation to each unique user. Users no longer will have time to wade through
massive collections of potentially irrelevant data. Instead, they must have immediate access to
only that information specifically required for their task at hand, presented in a coherent form
3 An ontology is a set of concepts, relationships, and meta-information that describes and links data in a useful,
functional fashion to other data.
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