Thinking about Product Data, Information Overload and Data Management

The Internet is part of our everyday life. Rewind a few decades and there was no Internet. All was just disconnected data. Did you know it all started from “information overload”? Watch the following video for a quick and entertaining history lesson:

Information Pioneers: Sir Tim Berners-Lee from Information Pioneers on Vimeo.

The problem that Tim Berners-Lee faced back in the 80s involved the sharing and exchanging of information. It was how he solved that problem we at Inforbix find very inspiring. What is interesting to me is that I recognized many parallel problems Tim’s web solved as something still existing and very painful in manufacturing companies today! In a way, and don’t take this out of context, the way people deal with product data in manufacturing companies hasn’t changed much in the last few decades. For years, data management is how most people have sought to address the ‘data problem’. I don’t think managing data has proven to be the best approach. Do you? It’s better than no approach. But how then can I reconcile what I hear from people?: Nobody wants to do “data management” but we need it because everyone has data that needs management.

Inforbix, inspired by Tim’s vision of connecting disparate sources of data together giving birth to the web, is thinking how to resolve product data challenges in manufacturing companies in a similar way. By so doing might cause people to re-think how they relate to product data today. And perhaps give them the tools for realizing the vision of the web in the manufacturing domain.