Knowledge-based Reengineering


Copyright 1992 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 15, Number 2, Summer 
1992. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is 
granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for 
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                      KNOWLEDGE-BASED REENGINEERING
                          by Karin Steinbrenner

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Karin Steinbrenner is Director of Computing Services at Framingham State
College. Born and educated in Germany, she moved to the U. S. in 1968,
where she has held positions as programmer-analyst, technical director,
director of data processing, and manager of information systems in
private and public organizations.

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ABSTRACT: What is the role of information technology in a campus-wide
reengineering effort? This article explores the dependency of successful
reengineering on a solid information infrastructure and offers two
approaches for facilitating institution-wide access to the "knowledge
base": one that maintains the existing IT infrastructure and surrounds
it with an enterprise-wide system, the other that sees the surround
approach only as the beginning of a reengineering process to sustain
efficient, reliable, and maintainable systems.


Reengineering is the latest "buzzword" for organizations and Information
Technology (IT). Reengineering doesn't imply throwing out existing
technology and replacing it with newer gadgets; rather, it asks for the
transformation of business processes to fully utilize the power of
modern information technology to achieve organizational goals faster and
with fewer resources , and to use information technology as an enabling
force.

Reengineering, while it requires a certain level of computing and
information infrastructure, in essence demands a realignment of existing
organizational structures and procedures to take advantage of advanced
technologies. It is an appeal to non-technical management to realize the
important benefits that can be achieved by working with and integrating
information technology into all business operations. Reengineering
addresses failed efficiencies from automated systems in the past,
because existing business practices were not changed with new systems,
or new systems were designed to automate clerical functions only and not
to support an information-based organization. Often, automated systems
were placed on top of existing procedural and operational structures
that were valid for non-information-based organizations, and were never
changed to take full advantage of the new technology.

Universities and colleges are enterprises with a clearly defined
mission--that of educating. They differentiate themselves from profit-
making organizations in that they tend to be much more decentralized and
their decision-making process is less authoritative. Their employees --
faculty--are very independent and pursue their own objectives under the
umbrella of the campus community. Because of their diversity, academic
institutions could realize enormous benefits from a computing and
information environment that can serve as a facilitator of common
resources and knowledge to all constituents, integrate a physically and
intellectually diverse environment, and provide a common thread which
ties all constituents to an enterprise-wide, clearly communicated goal.

Many colleges and universities today are experiencing reductions in
funding and are forced to meet their objectives with fewer resources.
Successful reengineering will reduce human resources needed for
communication of information, with mail and access to institutional data
facilitated by IT. The role of the middle level manager will change from
communicator of knowledge up and down the hierarchy and controller of
clerical staff to that of planner and doer. Information based systems
have built-in controls to empower front-line staff to exercise control
over their own work. Successful reengineering will result in a
horizontally oriented organization, where employees are supported by
information networks and data are freely shared across the institution's
business functions and departments.

In a decentralized environment like a college or university with
many departments, buildings, possibly more than one campus, and varied
individual schedules, communication among faculty and staff is difficult
at best. Electronic mail and access to online campus schedules, policies
and procedures, long range plans, and news bulletins have the potential
to improve communication dramatically and could convey to faculty,
students, and staff up-to-date information and the overall mission of
the institution.

It is its collective information that holds it together, and to
succeed, the modern higher education institution needs to be organized
around its information or knowledge base and become proficient in using
the tools that enable the collection, management, communication, and
dissemination of that information.

Status quo

Most campuses have computerized systems to support standard
administrative functions, from admission and registration through
alumni. These systems originated on the mainframe and were maintained by
a central computing services department. Their original objectives were
to eliminate tedious clerical tasks. Accordingly, access to these
systems was given mainly to data entry clerks via "dumb" terminals
connected to the mainframe. Information resulting from the data
collected was fixed in format and content and distributed to a selected
audience as hardcopy reports.

With the advent of personal computers and the need for more and
flexible information, departments built their own separate systems,
creating databases that were often redundant with the central data,
incompatible due to different coding conventions, and often
inconsistent. Some of these problems were overcome by local area
networks and interfaces between local and central systems that
facilitated up- and down-loading of data between the various hardware
and software platforms.

As a result of this evolution, many campuses today are faced with a
conglomerate of incompatible hardware, software, and databases.

Campus-wide information access

Realizing the need for campus-wide communication and distribution
of consistent knowledge without interfering with local computing
autonomy, one solution is to build a campus-wide system that surrounds
all these separate stand-alone computing and information islands. It
extracts all the information, converts it to a consistent integrated
data repository, and provides a common access mechanism for information
query across all hardware platforms.

This surround strategy eliminates the main obstacle for the
successful reengineering process: It will provide all users with access
to a consistent institution-wide information base. One major drawback,
however, is a very complex computing and information architecture built
on a foundation that was never planned to support the entire campus.
Every time a local system is modified, the campus-wide system needs to
be changed accordingly. Another problem, of course, is cost: the
resulting computing and information environment requires additional
hardware, software, and more human resources for its ongoing support.

Every organization has one simple objective it seeks to achieve
from the implementation of advanced information technology: To provide
every constituent of the organization with real-time access to the
information needed to perform his/her job effectively. At an institution
of higher education, this could be:

  *  for a researcher, raw data to perform complicated statistical
analyses or extensive library search on a specific subject matter;

  *  for a staff or faculty member, instructions on how to complete a
travel reimbursement form;

  *  for a student, the amount of his/her financial aid or which
courses s/he still needs to complete for graduation;

  *  for faculty, the schedule for the next curriculum meeting;

  *  for department heads, budget guidelines and accounts with a base
budget, which allows them to enter the next fiscal year budget or a
requisition for new equipment.

Access to the knowledge base should be available from any computer
on campus or from a remote site using a single, intuitive interface. How
this is achieved technically, while important, is secondary from a
user's perspective. With a campus-wide access system in place,
reengineering can evolve as the institution reorganizes around its
knowledge repository.

Information technology architecture

Mentioned above was one technical solution to reengineering:
Surround existing systems with a campus-wide system through which
everyone has access to information, but which allows existing systems to
remain operational.

This approach has been or is in the process of being implemented at
many institutions around the country. However, the "surround" technique
can become a bandaid, covering many inefficient and complex systems that
are no longer cost effective or may even be obsolete. The complexity of
the systems may introduce data errors--inconsistencies caused by data
redundancy inherent in the old systems or timing, i.e., some part of the
data may be extracted at a different time than others.

It is therefore important to accompany the surround approach with
the intent to examine the existing technology, and, where appropriate,
develop a new plan for an institution-wide communication, computing, and
information infrastructure. Such a strategy would identify system-wide
standards for communication, hardware, and software, determine what
components of the existing architecture fit into the vision, and what
needs to be replaced or upgraded. The plan should specify how and when
to migrate to that architecture after the campus-wide information access
system is operational without interrupting administrative and
informational access.

The new architecture has to adhere to standards, have connectivity
and interoperability, and be scalable, modular, expandable, and easy and
intuitive to use. The computing, communication, and information
architecture consists of:

  *  the network
  *  computer hardware
  *  operating system(s)
  *  database management system (DBMS)
  *  software development tools and languages
  *  application software
     -office automation systems
     -administrative systems
     -analyses and planning packages
  *  user interface.

Each layer of the architecture should meet current and--where
possible--emerging industry standards. It should be designed and
implemented in a way that it can be expanded easily and/or upgraded.
Where possible, one layer of the architecture should be independent from
the one above or below, for example: the DBMS should be supported by
several operating systems, and the operating system should be hardware
independent. The objective is to create an architecture that is as open
and modular as possible. With this architecture, elements can be mixed
and matched and modules can be exchanged when they become obsolete
without the need to replace the entire structure. Staying with standards
not only allows for ease of expansion, but also has economic advantages
reflected in lower hardware and software prices resulting from economies
of scale.

While the network, computer hardware, operating systems and
application systems are essential components of the overall
architecture, their sole function is to facilitate the effective sharing
of information or knowledge among faculty, staff, and students. To make
this information exchange reliable, secure, consistent, as well as
economical, the computing, communication, and information architecture
needs to be carefully planned and engineered from the ground up. The
most important layer of the architecture is the information or
"knowledge" layer. Its correct organization, collection, rules for
dissemination, and ongoing management either facilitate the kind of
access envisioned or make it difficult if not impossible.

The institution's knowledge base then becomes the centerpiece of
IT's part in the reengineering process, and every other component
assists in the maintenance and dissemination of the information base.
The network and the computers are the roads and traffic cops to carry
the information and to direct where it should go, and the software
presents the information in a user-acceptable format.

With much of the emphasis on new technologies, IT professionals
sometimes forget that capturing, managing, and distributing of knowledge
to all constituents is the only objective for implementing expensive and
extensive technologies. While non-IT management cannot help with
building the technical support structure, they need to define
information requirements, determine data responsibilities, and define
access authorization.

 Information infrastructure

A campus-wide information repository has to be established as the
foundation for the information infrastructure. The organization of the
information base is crucial in order for it to be manageable,
accessible, reliable, secure, consistent, and expandable. Whether the
actual data are stored centrally or distributed is really irrelevant,
and depends on the size, hardware and software availability, and
structure of the institution. Even if it is distributed over many
hardware platforms, the knowledge repository has to be viewed as a
logical entity like the institution whose collective experience, wisdom,
and skills it represents. Through distributed databases, local autonomy
of computing and information resources can be maintained with
centralized standards, security, and management. Distributed database
management systems facilitate the maintenance of all data across all
platforms to ensure consistent up-to-date data for all its users.

The information access tools should contain a consistent, easy-to-
use interface, through which all users can retrieve and analyze data
from the repository. The retrieval system should include access to data
dictionaries and tables explaining data elements and codes coupled with
an intuitive retrieval language. Needless to say, necessary security has
to be in place to prohibit unauthorized access to sensitive data
elements.

Graphical user interfaces, sophisticated statistical analyses,
models for predicting trends in enrollment, labor force, and so forth
are of little value unless the results they convey are based on
trustworthy data. The exceptional quality achieved today in
presentations and publications by means of sophisticated workstations
and software, as well as the ease by which information can be accessed,
often go hand in hand with a trust in the validity of the underlying
data. One of the most crucial roles for IT staff is to warrant this
trust.

In addition to being a repository of all data elements, the new
information model has to be designed to maintain and access future data
elements that will be or are already an integral part of the information
repository. New data types could be (but are not limited to): rules that
govern the entry and retrieval of data, voice messages, video images,
static images, copies of original transcripts, photographs, signatures,
or documents, whether they are simply memoranda, permanent institutional
policies and procedures, or departmental or institutional plans.

As more of these objects can be stored and represented on
economical workstations, the original information base will migrate to
become the institution's knowledge repository.

Implementing the infrastructure

Where the surround approach is accompanied by a plan for the
transformation to a cost effective and efficient information
architecture, the new campus-wide-access system is the first step toward
a well designed, integrated IT architecture, adhering to open systems
standards.

Following the plan, existing communication, hardware, and software
systems can systematically be upgraded or replaced. The migration should
be carried out in small steps without interrupting the user's view of
and access to the system. Gradually the entire IT architecture can be
rebuilt from the bottom up under the umbrella of the campus-wide access
system.

How to achieve this and how long it will take differs for each
campus. It depends on the existing infrastructure, its degree of
compliance with standards, software, complexity and size of the
institution, and the resources available for the project.

During the migration, it is important to maintain user access to
information and to preserve its integrity at all times. Once complete,
the hardware hierarchy is reduced to fewer layers and communication,
with operating and software systems adhering to standards. The resulting
architecture not only simplifies the maintenance of all hardware and
software systems, it also generates substantial savings in maintenance
cost and reduced support staff requirements. Because of standards and
simplification, the information infrastructure becomes more robust and
reliable.

Unlike the infrastructure the institution started out with, the
evolving one is designed to support campus-wide access. Because of its
modularity, it allows for ongoing expansion and improvement of the
technological infrastructure to meet changing goals of the institution.

Conclusion

The discussion above focuses on IT's crucial role in facilitating
campus-wide reengineering--to provide consistent, intuitive access to 
the institution's knowledge repository to all constituents, and ensure 
its integrity, accessibility, maintainability, and expandability through 
an efficient and effective technological infrastructure.

To minimize ongoing cost and ensure valid and consistent data, the
information base needs to be supported by an IT architecture based on
standards and designed to provide enterprise-wide information sharing
and access.

A reliable, accessible information base is a prerequisite for the
campus-wide reengineering process. Successful reengineering will result
in more intelligent use of human resources at all levels of the
organization and through access to information will empower staff to
cross artificial boundaries imposed upon them by physical and
organizational limitations. It can integrate a decentralized
organization like a college or university through a common set of
knowledge supported by the technical infrastructure.

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Gleason, Bernard W. Open Access: A User Information System, CAUSE
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Knowledge-based Reengineering