TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I have developed something which might be of use to most government enterprises. I believe it can significantly improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and responsiveness of any enterprise.

I will provide it freely to any US State or Federal agency that requests it. The requestor must pay the cost of the transport/media. It is not a fully operational system and will need local development, but it has been proven to work.

The development is a corporate information repository with an 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 and detailed "map" of an enterprise.

This repository allows every significant object/entity (i.e., things that are managed) within or associated-with an enterprise to be uniquely identified and accounted for, while displaying that object's full distribution and composition throughout the context of the enterprise, on an ad-hoc or routine basis.

In doing this, it provides a fully structured, contextual, ordered, and holistic knowledge-base for the enterprise as a whole. It is a system that can serve as a comprehensive corporate directory, responsibility/authority/authorization system, accountability/auditing/inventory system, data management system, and access determination 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 presentations of the concept and demonstrations of the operational prototype have been amazed at the intuitiveness and common-sense that it represents. It is understood by most people after only a brief introduction.

With this management concept applied to an enterprise such as a government organization, 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 the variety of 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, allocation, 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.

Although this sounds improbable or utopian, such a repository-based endeavor is technologically, managerially, and economically feasible. An operational prototype has been created and would require only minor modification by a system developer.

There are obviously 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 lose, 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 governments, businesses, society, and 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, (i.e., entropy).

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

I have developed this concept and the operational prototype of the system over the past several years. It is an offshoot of acquiring 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, and information resources management.

I am seeking the most effective means of putting this concept and the source code for the prototype into the public domain. The program has been completed far enough to develop on a full scale basis.

I think you'll find that this concept is about three to five years beyond what many will tell you is possible for an information repository, although really professional developers have probably already done better. But my price is better!

I believe this would fit best in those organizations which have already done an Information Systems Planning study in a form similar to the IBM Business Planning study. That is the startpoint for development of the repository's Business Activity object class, the toughest part. Once one type of enterprise has such as a State government has been done, another State can immediately apply about 80 percent of the prior effort. The same applies for nations, counties, and cities, businesses, industry groups, non-profit groups, etc. Subsequent applications for the same type of enterprise are really just fine tuning with some modifications and additions. This makes it very scalable and marketable.

It would also make an interesting university project involving business, computer, communication, government, economics, systems management, social sciences, information science, and management schools, among others.

It could probably go over very well in Eastern Europe and the new Commonwealth of Independent States, especially since they have to almost totally restructure their enterprises from the ground up. They have less of a committment to maintaining the status quo. They are also no longer quite so intimidated by an open communication network and the free flow of information. I hope someone will achieve that. Note that if two or more agencies, for example, a State, County and City governments, choose to integrate their repositories (a simple process), then those enterprises could effectively manage their economies and societies in an integrated fashion, while still keeping close hold on their critical government or business information. It would facilitate the development of trade or cultural integration, or even governmental mergers.

With the repository and LCM application, you can do more with the same resources. That leads to local decisions. Do you want smaller, less expensive operations with the same output, or the same scale of operation doing more? That's not a choice we've had to face too often in the past.

I am supplying the full package to whomever asks for it. I am not resourced, experienced, or qualified enough as a developer to do it justice. I am also not interested in commercial endeavors, except perhaps in consulting during development or refinement. I just believe it is too useful to try and hold back. I've tried to make it simple enough that an enterprise could implement it with a competent management analysis, systems analysis, programming and data management operation. It should probably move into some sort of standardization process as soon as there are some major participants.

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, systems management, knowledge engineering, and information engineering concepts and technologies, but is fundamentally a corporate management environment.

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. In this way, they define the enterprise.

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, down to the lowest managed level of detail.

[Note that the software code to manage the repository is less than 2000 lines of dBase IV 1.1 code, but it could be done in almost any relational data base programming language as a centralized, server, or distributed application/database. 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 common 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. This life cycle management application includes all phases of management planning, programming, budgeting, execution, and review, as well as all system documentation, system development, and configuration management stages.

The key for this approach in the overall structure of the object classes, the hierarchical object coding, the macro to micro relations between the object classes, and the relational technique used in the cross-index. It is relatively simple once you see it, but the scope can be intimidating. By applying the above rules and a few simple constraints, you get a very rich information query/display capability.

Within the LCM application, the life cycle management "package" of each object or object group becomes just another object within the repository, open to the same query and display of distribution and composition detail.

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.

If you have an interest in what I have presented and would like further information or the prototype, source code, and documentation, please 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 01149-6221-57-6868 or 8815 (civilian) or 370-6868/8815 (DSN). My Internet/DDN address is roebuckr@heidelberg-emh2.army.mil.

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