Knowledge Management

Business Intelligence/Data

Warehousing

OperationsResearch

Geographic Information

Systems

Commercial Sector Applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

• Where I’ve been

• What GIS is and where GIS has been

• Where GIS is now

• Where GIS is going

• Questions

Where I’ve Been

• Information scientist at CIESIN, a data and research center focused on human interactions in the environment.

• Computer science professor at American University (AU); created AU’s first recurring course on GIS.

• Senior Research Scientist at University of Illinois; led organization of first campus-wide GIS event

• Manager of knowledge and data engineering at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM); led projects showcasing GIS understanding markets, supporting decision making, and respond to opportunities. Justified formation of GIS group to senior executive management.

ADM Receives ESRI Special Achievement Award

“GIS-based analysis projects include emergency response coordination with local officials, customer relations and logistics optimization. With the vast amount of information needed for daily business operations, GIS technology has proven to be a powerful medium for data visualization.”

Where GIS has Been …and What is GIS Anyway?

• We can think of GIS as being automated mapping.• More generally, a GIS is a system of computer

hardware and software, information, and people for representing, analyzing, and visualizing data about specific places on the Earth.

• Origins in the 1960s:• Canada GIS used by Canadian government to

marshal natural resource information(Tomlinson)

• Harvard Graphics Laboratory(Chrisman, Charting the Unknown)

But isn’t ___ a GIS?• A number of web and mobile applications have kinship with GIS

– Yahoo! Maps– MapQuest– GoogleMaps/GoogleEarth– Microsoft Bing Maps

• So yes, in a sense. But a GIS:– Provides more control over data

• Data can stay in-house• Can know what data is used and where it came from

– Allows greater customization of what goes on maps and how maps appear

– Allows automated processing of large amounts of data– Allows processing of data using specialized, flexible techniques– Allows creation and incorporation of new data

Growth of GIS Industry

Courtesy of Charles Foundyller - Daratech.

GIS Usage Paradigms• Using a GIS to create new data and knowledge means working

in the analytical paradigm of cartography.• Example: processing satellite images with a GIS can

produce maps showing areas of urban development, areas converted to agricultural production, etc.

• Using a GIS to produce effective visualization of existing data means working in the communication paradigm of cartography.

• Knowledge management practitioners should help stakeholders understand the potential of both paradigms to contribute to business results.

• Work in the analytical paradigm is likely to have the greatest business value, but is more difficult to convey and be deemed credible by management.

Selected GISRepresentation Paradigms

• Raster• Regular grid laid out across area of interest.• Attributes associated with each grid cell.• Example: satellite imagery.

• Vector• The x-y coordinates of point features or vertices of lines or

polygons are stored.• Attributes associated with each point, line, or polygon.• Example: polygons representing census tracts.

• Network• Connections among spatially-referenced road, rail, river

segments or other interconnected systems are explicitly represented.

• Attributes associated (such as distance, travel time, or cost) with these connections and the nodes (junctions) they connect.

Why So Much GIS Activity?• GIS activity is driven in part by advances in

technology. Also, consider:• Location is everywhere and place matters, often

in a very visceral way.• Much of the data, information, and knowledge

we use includes location which provides a framework in which information can be brought together.

• Items of interest and the spatial relationships among them are a physical embodiment of knowledge.

Location is Everywhere

• What do these have in common?– Manufacturing plants

– Warehouses and other logistics nodes

– Customers and prospects

– Competitors

– Suppliers and other partners

– Employees and potential labor forces

– Natural and anthropogenic hazards

• They all have locations

Location, Location, Location

Yet for all the new marketing efforts, Starbucks’s biggest mistakes and greatest challenges boil down to three words: location, location and location. (NYT, July 4, 2008 )

Natural and Anthropogenic Hazards

• “Five U.S. reactors in quake zones: Map points out at-risk nuke plants” (USA Today, April 11, 2011)

• “Total economic impact of a series of *New Madrid Seismic Zone] earthquakes is likely to constitute the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States” (FEMA)

• US EPA EnviroMapper lets you enter your zip code and see maps showing regulated facilities (such as Superfund sites) where you live.

Wabash Quake 2008

Map created for April 18, 2008 GIS workshop based on user-generated content collected by USGS within hours of quake.

Opportunities Also HaveGeographic Dimensions

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) 4:01pm 10/02/2007 – Archer Daniels Midland CFO Doug Schmalzsaid Tuesday the corn and soy bean processing

giant would consider buying ethanol …"We have to have properties that will fit within our network. Some plants just wouldn't fit; others might."

What does the network look like?

(ADM Analyst Day

November 8, 2006)

ADM’s Competitors Think Geographically as Well

Most Data Include Location• Most business data contains geographic dimensions.• Maps should be a part of every business intelligence

deployment.• Every business application is location-enabled not just GIS

applications.Alan Fuller, Jim Steiner of Oracle speaking at NAVTEQ, March 22, 2011

• Significance

We have many information and knowledge assets which may not be labeled “GIS Data” but which nonetheless may see their highest and best use through analysis and communication using GIS.

Physical Embodiment of Knowledge• Items of interest and the spatial relationships among them are a

physical embodiment of knowledge

• When we see a Jimmy John’s sandwich shop in a location, we know that it is likely that the surrounding area meets a number of criteria:

• Daytime employee population > 8,000 within a 3 minute drive time, etc.• Residential population > 25,000 within the defined trade area• Median income > $40,000• Traffic count in front of the location > 25,000 vehicles per dayhttp://www.jimmyjohns.com/franchise/realEstate.aspx

• When we see a grain elevator?• … a check cashing facility?• … an intermodal logistics facility?

• Those charged with managing the knowledge assets of a firm should recognize alternative embodiments of knowledge and help their firms maximize the value derived from this knowledge.

Where is GIS Now?

Those in a variety of industriesthink geographically

• ESRI is a leading vendor of geographic information systems software and created a new commercial sales division in 2005 in response to increased interest in the commercial sector.

• Discussions with ESRI and review of materialfrom Forrester Research provide additional perspectives.

GIS in the Commercial Sector

Forrester 2008:

“Although previously not a critical priority to the enterprise’s business technology (BT) repertoire, GIS vendors have recently re-architected, repackaged, and repositioned themselves in search of satisfying the enterprise’s needs.”Connaughton and Gaynor “Location-Intelligent Business Solutions Put GIS On The Enterprise Agenda”

1 866/FORRESTER

GIS in the Commercial Sector (2)– ESRI sees the greatest interest from:

• Property and Casualty Insurance Companies

• Retail

• Manufacturing

• Transportation

– Rail

– Trucking/Delivery

• Financial Services.

– Insurance companies have been among the earliest adopters of GIS, due to the ease with which they can measure return on investment.

– GIS is moving from departmental use (for example the real estate group in a retailer using GIS to support site selection) to enterprise use (using GIS to manage the facilities once they are built, using GIS to help ‘map’ consumer movement thru stores and plan product placement, analyze supply chain, optimize distribution routes etc.) [ESRI 2008]

GIS in the Commercial Sector (3)

• ESRI now indicates top areas now also include:

– Real estate

– Healthcare and Related Industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals) [ESRI 2011]

ESRI Satellite OfficeChicago, IL 221 North LaSalle Street, Suite 863Chicago, IL 60601312-609-0966

Example GIS Application Areas

• Site Selection• Risk Management• Claims Analysis• Customer Analytics• Territory Creation• Routing• Supply Chain Analysis• Asset Tracking and Monitoring• Customer Service Portals• Regulation / Policy Compliance• Safety and Security• Workforce ManagementSource: ESRI

Examples from Ploughman Portfolio

• National crop production and logistics

• Detection of development from satellite imagery

• Retail site selection

• Market zone analysis

By examining time series images from two different time

periods and examining the differences…

…changes over time are readily identified.

…and running the same automated

processes for both…

1

2

3

Retail Site Selection

1

2

Given a set of competing locations for a business and a handful of

locations of interest….

…relevant metrics can be overlaid visually to asses the relative

strengths of different areas. See the employment density below.

Can combine information about logistics networks, costs, and constraints with supply and demand information to estimate:

• the zones from which materials will be sourced

• the zones to which materials will be delivered

• the volume of materials that will flow through a logistics node

This method allows the exploration of the consequences of price and capacity changes at various nodes.

Commodity Market Zone Analysis

Where is GIS Going?

Trends to Watch

• A flood of low-cost geospatial data• Government• Commercial• Social media

• The rise of User Generated Content (UGC) in many forms• Open Street Map• Knowledge creation on mobile devices

• Convergence of search, business intelligence, and GIS

Trends to Watch (2)

• New architectures for working with geospatial information• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

• Don’t move data to your desktop, point your GIS at a geospatial data service

• Cloud computing• Mashups (Google, enterprise, etc.)

• Neither Google Maps nor Bing Maps are a GIS … until they are.• Developer resources and activities will lead to a tip if

data lineage issues and information security issues can be addressed.

Trends to Watch (3)• GIS or something like it becomes as much a

part of the standard business toolkit as the spreadsheet. Trend driven by:• Ease of use gains• Fundamental geographic nature of

business (manufacturing plants, warehouses and other logistics

nodes, customers and prospects, competitors, suppliers and other partners, employees and potential labor forces, natural and anthropogenic hazards all have locations)

• Arrival of new workforce cohorts

Supply Chain Inspection

A Satisfied Collaborator and his Friend

Questions

Charles Linville

Ploughman Analytics

2021 S First St Suite 206D

Champaign, IL 61820

linville@ploughman-analytics.com

www.ploughman-analytics.com

217-693-4000