During the past few months, we conducted a number of pretty interesting workshops with the Data Mining experts form Bosch Corporate Research. We discussed with them in what way data-driven and rule-based approaches complement each other. You find some of our considerations in the following.
Admittedly, the starting point of our discussion (i.e. ideas that I came up some years ago) was rather fragmentary. I am a Computational Linguist and these folks are pretty much comfortable with data-driven methods. So when I started to work with Bosch Software Innovations, honestly speaking, I was surprised to find that people would model a classifier by hand, while they could run a Data Mining toolkit to automatically train one. After a lot of thinking and discussing, I back then answered the question “When to use what approach?” as follows: Business Rules are best suited for explicit knowledge, while Data Mining is best suited for implicit knowledge. Pretty straightforward, isn’t it? Alas, that’s only half the story.
Cooking: Explicit Knowledge
The distinction between explicit and implicit was established in the 1960s by M. Polanyi. It means that some knowledge can be encoded in terms of for instance texts, figures, or formulas and can thus be communicated, while some knowledge is kind of tacit, that is to say, it is part of a person’s skills but cannot be communicated. Have a look at the pictures: How to cook a certain meal can be communicated with a recipe or a sequence of photos. Read more…
The Internet of Things and Services (IoTS) has born a new term: Generation C – the C stands for “connected”. Let me quote the futurist and digital analyst Brian Solis: This generation has “digital prowess as part of their DNA. And, it’s the first generation to receive both a birth certificate and a social profile or presence upon delivery into this world.” Generation C’s digital lifestyle (e.g. smart phones, apping, social networking) imposes a new level of business creativity on established domains, for example the energy world. For more traditional business environments, Solis recommends “augmented engagement strategies” based on Generation C’s behaviors, needs, expectations and the online platforms this new “connected” customer base uses. So what does this mean for utilities and the supply chain around them? Read more…
The following video is showing the interaction between BPM and BRM in the Internet of Things. The demo is based on a scenario where live video cameras are submitting events to a security firm. Visual Rules BRM is used to filter the events and start incident management processes in case of significant events (e.g. intrusion, loitering). inubit BPM is used to implement the incident management process, including management of the mobile work force, work schedules of the guards, etc. BPM based monitoring and analytics provides transparency for important KPIs. Master data management is used to manage information about customer sites and cameras.
If we wanted to be heretical, we could say: At last, IT specialists across the board have acknowledged that there are such things as volumes of data that will not fit into a standard database and are almost impossible to deal with using current tools. Only a few old favorites such as Google or Amazon dare – and have done so for a number of years – tackle these large, very large volumes of data. And they even manage to process them efficiently (we assume) and profitably (as we can see).
However, in addition to clicks and links, the internet of things and services will also give rise to new types of data, emerging for instance from the collection of sensor data and the control of actuators. And how these data are dealt with is similar and yet also radically different to what happens in today’s internet. Why? If we imagine the internet of things and services as a depiction of reality built up from all that sensor and actuator data, we can among others draw the following conclusion: Read more…
Let´s start with something big. Something really big. So big, that it becomes awkward to work with, Wikipedia says. I´m talking about data. Big data. Here we go:
Fiducia IT is a major provider of a multi-channel banking platform that is currently used by more than 700 banks and 100.000 users. Just lately, Fiducia IT has implemented a combined BPM and BRM approach with inubit Suite and Visual Rules. Coming along, there are not only major architectural changes but also organizational ones that need to be managed in a smart way. Read more…
With the VisTA project (Visibility of Transport Assets), REWE Group, one of Europe’s leading retail and travel companies, has taken a decisive step in its logistics and shipment tracking processes towards the internet of things and services. The EHI Retail Institute now awarded the VisTA project the Retail Technology Award in the category “Best Enterprise Solution”. Congratulations!Read more…
Internet of things topics are spreading in the blogosphere. This particular blog is a manifest. But only in the blogosphere? No, not at all. We will also present a lot of different perspectives on it at various events this year. One of the events is the CeBIT 2012 in Hannover/Germany. There will be a series of presentations at our booth, which I would like to introduce to you, briefly.
In a preceding blog article Processes, Rules, and Data – what more could you ask for? my colleague Dirk explained the interplay of processes, rules, and data at a conceptual level. Today I would like to dive into the details on implementing a small example made up of a simple Claim Management rule and a corresponding process and data management solution.
A warm hello from the inubit Product Management team to our new colleagues at Bosch Software Innovations and our joint community! As the latest addition to the Bosch family, we are looking forward to contributing to new customer projects and the integration of the product lines.
In the last 12 years, inubit was involved in more than 450 successful BPM projects. Our lessons learned? BPM is no silver bullet, but it is a vital piece of the complex “enterprise application jigsaw”. Of course there are many other pieces to this jigsaw, including portals and Web 2.0 UIs, human workflows, EAI and SOA, complex decision making and data validation, data management, data analysis, application monitoring and operations support, to name but a few.
The Internet of Things and Services (
With the VisTA project (Visibility of Transport Assets), 
