Day 1

09.00 – 09.30 Registration

09.30 – 10.45 Keynote: The need for an information strategy in the Aerospace and Defence industry, by Iain Galloway, Logistic Support International

UK MOD is becoming ever more demanding towards the delivery of output based solutions. To this end the UK MOD is now considering the way ahead for realisation of the “Supplier / Decider” Strategy whereby the Supplier will deliver Mission Ready Equipment in agreed numbers, at agreed locations, and against agreed risk.  In other words the Supplier is to Deliver Capability. The key elements of People, Process, Technology and Information Management, to include the use of the PLCS Standard, must be integrated and balanced. This session will discuss what does this mean, what are the evolving stages and how must the Supplier respond by managing information to present intelligence to manage Risk?

10.45 – 11.15 Coffee

11.15 – 12.30 Data integration and sharing - issues and challenges, by Kais Al-Timimi, Datamation Limited 

It is said that up to 40% of all IT budgets is spent on data integration and customisations. To put this in perspective, according to a recent IBM Business Consulting Services study, “Oil Exploration and Production companies estimate that they lose 5-15% of the net asset value during an asset life due to inefficiencies and inconsistent global management”. 

Why, in spite of the immense advances in IT technology, are data integration costs are so high? and how they can be reduced? To answer these questions the presenter will start by outlining the business drivers that led to today’s complete reliance on computer aided technologies and product data management solutions. He will then describe why past approaches to this problem have failed and how better understanding of those business drivers can lead to an effective solution to this seemingly intractable problem.

12.45 - 14.00 Lunch

14.00 - 15.15 Techniques and methodologies for integrating and consolidating data across the organisation, by Roger Eatwell, MeTabula

Individual clean, consistent sources of data are of value to specific groups within the organisation, but are of limited value to the organisation as a whole. The majority of business decisions require data and information taken from a set of sources. There are a number of well-recognised approaches to integration including ETL, EAI, and EII (Extract/Transform/Load, 
Enterprise Application Integration and Enterprise Information Integration). Each of these is discussed in detail and comparisons are drawn between the various approaches.

15.15 - 15.45 Break

15.45 - 17.00 Identifying and resolving the data quality issues, by Nigel Ball, MeTabula

The need to operate the business using meaningful and consistent information is unquestionable; the problem is that typically the actual position is very different. It is estimated that 5% to 60% of table records contain poor quality data because of duplication, missing information, abbreviations and lack of validation. This session proposes that the most important issue is to understand the magnitude of the problem caused by this lack of data quality before proceeding to describe approaches that help to improve the data quality.

A significant hurdle to achieving a unified, consistent view of the integrated information is the challenge posed by the need for consolidation. How this is handled within the various integration approaches and the corresponding impact is also covered.

17.00 - 17.30 Summary and open discussion

19.30 -           Workshop dinner