Mentioned in Dispatches
Quote from my 1998 Paper in response by NASA (!) to FAQ on the importance of exploiting information standards …
“Taking a step forward with FLAIR (Foster Wheeler Lifecycle Asset Information Architecture — [Standard Information Model])”, arguing that information management is more important than information technology, Ian Glendinning of Foster Wheeler describes the progress being made towards putting [Standard Information Modelling] into practice in the process industries:
At last year’s [1997] UK Process Industry IT Strategy Conference, organised by IChemE and PRIMA, several speakers referred to the success of IT in many service and manufacturing industries and contrasted this with the failure of billions of dollars of IT investment over 10 years to deliver such benefits to the process industries. The lack of success was blamed on ‘failure in the boardroom to grasp the information management agenda.’ [ the same PRIMA conference mentioned earlier in relation to Clive Holtham btw ]
These same speakers — directors from the oil, gas and chemical majors — shared their visions of information and knowledge as their key corporate asset to be exploited by making it available to anyone, anywhere in their organisations. Most agree that the key issue is not IT but Information Management, and that a major dimension of this involves soft issues like knowledge, people, and business culture.
Although the data integration and standardisation objectives are widely accepted, few people … would accept [Standard Information Models] as fully proven in the bottom line. However, there is already a threefold drive to create a strategic framework … at this stage:
Firstly, the pace of change in IT [and the web – ignored in a 1997 conference !] continues to be so great that planning future exploitation cannot be left until the potential is fully proven and developed in detail.
Secondly, the potential changes are so far reaching in terms of ‘business re-engineering’ possibilities that the cultural changes needed cannot simply be switched on once [Standard Information Models] become a shrink-wrapped solution.
Finally, the complexity of the detail is such that fully detailed [Standard Information Model] solutions will not arise from standards development alone, without the iteration provided by early implementation.”
(The entire arcticle is preserved on-line at the Impact of Standards User Group Project of the Commission of the EU and cached by Google.)