Governor Bill Clinton Roy E. Roebuck

Arkansas State Capitol Building HQ, US Army Europe

Little Rock, Arkansas 72205 CMR 431, Box 1651

APO AE 09175

Governor Clinton; 3 Feb, 1992

I am writing to you because I have developed something which might be of use to you in your management of the state government and possibly in your bid for the Presidency. I believe it can significantly improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and responsiveness of any enterprise, such as government. I had previously discussed this development with Repr. Stanley Russ of Faulkner County during my last visit there in July/August 91. Since I last spoke to Stanley I have made significant improvements to the original concept I had presented to him. I am furnishing him a copy of this correspondence in response to that earlier conversation.

My family has spoken highly of you and supported you. My father was Roy Roebuck, of Conway. He had a small direct-sales farm equipment business that he operated throughout Arkansas. My mother is Bettye Roebuck, also of Conway. She manages a small bookstore for me there. My brother Tony, now of Charlottesville, Virginia and sister Becky Roebuck Priddle of Houston, Texas have also spoken highly of you. I am writing to you at the urging of Becky. Although I am no longer an Arkansas resident, I do own a house in Conway as well as the small bookstore mentioned earlier. I have been out of the state, serving in the military and civil service, since the mid-70's.

The concept I have developed is a corparate information repository and integrated life cycle management (LCM) system. It is an "open system" approach and can be implemented on most computer/network platforms. It presents a comprehensive "map" of an enterprise. I will provide it freely to you or any agency, business, or individual that requests it. It is not a fully operational system and will need local development, but it has been proven to work.

This repository allows every significant object (i.e., things an enterprise chooses to manage) within or associated with an enterprise to be uniquely identified and accounted for, while displaying that object's full distribution and composition througout the enterprise, on an ad-hoc or routine basis. In doing this, it provides a fully structured, contextual, ordered, and holistic knowledge-base of the enterprise as a whole. It is an automated, networked application that serves as a comprehensive corporate directory, responsibility/authority/ authorization system, and accountability/auditing/inventory system, among other uses. It reduces and reverses the progression of disorder and "fuedalism" within the boundary of the enterprise. Most people who have seen demonstations of the concept have been amazed at the intuitiveness and common-sense that it represents. A typical remark has been the "Of Course, its Obvious!" cliche. It is clear to most people after only a brief introduction. I believe the concept's organization calls up some sort of common perception in people.

With this management concept applied to an enterprise such as a government or business, you create a management environment which is an order of magnitude higher in its quality of performance. It creates an organization that is self-accounting, self-regulated, transparent to its leaders, members and customers/citizens (within appropriate security/privacy controls), easily navigable in terms of finding information and in following decisions or program performance, and which has richness and high synergy in its productive capabilities. It diminishes the potential for hidden agendas, deception, and sub-optimal behaviors within the enterprise. It identifies duplication, encourages standardization and streamlining, provides a method to automate most routine communication and transactions, and provides an effective means to balance production, distribution, and consumption. If applied across the state or nation, it could lead to full integration between government, business, society and individuals. It would reduce the cost of operations while increasing the quality and quantity of output. It would enable more responsiveness to management direction.

I know this sounds improbable or utopian, but I assure you that a repository-based endeavor is technologically, managerially, and economically feasible. Of course, there are complications and complexities, both political and technical, in implementing such a macro-system, especially in gaining support from those currently in power. They have the most to loose, but also potentially the most to gain. The cliche about "being part of the solution rather than part of the problem" would apply here. In this sense, the implementation would be revolutionary and would irreversibly change the status quo. But with the current state of our governments, our businesses, our society, and our people, I believe that the status quo must not be the goal. That will lead further into decay, disorder, instability, and a diminishing quality to our collective humanity and character, (a.k.a., entropy).

With a clear concept, statement of direction, and plan; a strong decision; and strong management of change in implementing this decision, we can achieve good governance, good business, good society, and good opportunities for our people in the relative near term.

This repository is actual, not hypothetical, and it is a total management repository, not just a data or software repository as might be construed by computer, software, or data management specialists. It fully employs current data base, communication, computer, knowledge engineering, and information engineering concepts and technologies, but is fundamentally a corporate management environment. Two charts are enclosed which graphically portray some of the following statements.

The concept uses seven classes of objects and organizes all instances of each object class into an individually numbered hierarchical/sequential pattern. This hierachical listing is called the "Catalog". The seven object classes are: Location, Organization, Production Unit, Function, Business Activity, Resources Configurations, and Resources. Note that these object classes flow from a macro to a micro perspective of the enterprise, and that each macro-class fully encompasses the next lower micro-class. These seven object classes, along with a variety of sub-classes within each, totally encompass an enterprises' managed entities.

A matrix (or cross-tabulation, or array) is then dynamically created from the Catalog that reflects the various associations between these objects. This is called the "Cross-Index". This Cross-Index displays the distribution and composition of the objects. [Note that the software code to manage the repository is less than 2000 lines of dBase IV code, but it could be done in almost any relational data base programming language. It is a simple application using complex data structures. There are a few complex functions, but most of the repository and LCM application are fairly routine software routines.]

Each object or group of objects is then managed through its accountable life cycle, which has been organized into three high level stages: planning, execution, and validation.

The repository and LCM can be implemented in three main phases.

Phase I would use the repository and LCM application as an integrating environment between existing information systems and systems of record.

Phase II would use the repository and LCM application as the system of record for the objects themselves, with existing systems continuing to be the system of record on any object transactions.

Phase III would use the repository and LCM application as the system of record for both the objects, and all object transactions.

The transition from Phase I to Phase III would be a matter of transferring object data and then gradually transferring the functionality from the existing systems into the repository.

I have developed this concept and a working prototype of the software over the past several years. It is an offshoot of my Master's degree in System Management. My background is in program management, corporate management analysis and improvement, systems analysis, management audit, creation of management systems, workflow analysis, organizational analysis and design, management of change, information resources management, and operations. I am presenting the final prototype and a Functional Description to the Army, my current employers, within the next couple of months. It has been well received to date. The concept and prototype have been developed outside my formal job duties. I am planning on moving to Washington, DC in the near future. I am also considering the most effective means of putting this concept and the source code for the prototype into the public domain.

If you have an interest in what I have presented and would like further information or the prototype, source code, and documentation, please have one of your staff contact me. In addition, if you know of any others who would have interest in this offer, please provide this information to them. The same conditions apply. My phone numbers from the US are 01149-6257-1341 (home) and 01149-6221-57-6868 (work). These are German telephone numbers. My Internet/DDN address is roebuckr@heidelberg-emh2.army.mil.

ROY E. ROEBUCK III