JCK - Excellence in Data Architecture

EXCELLENCE IN DATA ARCHITECTURE

since 1989

4348 Pine Grove Ave
Fort Gratiot MI USA
48059-3732
V: 810 982-8639

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Business Event Analysis & Modeling (BEAM™)

BEAM™ for Decision Support Systems

Extended Relational Analysis (ERA™)

Structured Query Language (SQL)

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What is User Focused Data Architecture?

Business Event Analysis & Modeling
for Decision Support Systems

Because your problem isn’t a shortage of data. Your problem is figuring out how to turn the data you have into useful information.

Computers can be wonderful things.

They do a great job of capturing data on the everyday transactions that run your organization. Sales, shipments, claims, orders – whatever it is, the systems can track them in great detail. They can even produce basic operational reports about the transactions. Volume reports, counts, summaries – whatever information your organization needs for day-to-day operations, your system probably does a fine job of producing it.

Just don't get too inquisitive.

Sadly, though classic computer systems (“transactional” systems in trade lingo) may do a great job of managing your transactional data, they’re weaker if you need to move beyond basic reports. You may be able to tell how many widgets by category you sold in a week, or the length of the average patient stay, or things like that. But if you want to get more creative...

Let's say you wanted to know...

...what customers stopped buying from you in the past year - and what they purchased just before they stopped?
...what patient diagnoses indicate the most expensive treatments - or return visits?
...which of your employees are most productive when computing salary and benefits against hours worked?
...which of your products is most (or least) profitable, considering everything from production through warranty service?

You need answers to questions like these to make the proper decisions in running your operation. Unfortunately, these types of questions are very difficult to answer out of transactional systems.

But I thought I had a good system!

Sure you do. The problem isn’t your system: it’s that you’re asking it to do things it wasn’t designed for. It’s like trying to use a tractor to do the job of a school bus.

Your transactional system was designed to manage data about transactions. To answer operational questions, the best solution is a decision support system.

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Since 1989, JCK has been devoted to teaching and implementing the principles of User-Focused Data Architecture. UFDA is based on the principle that the users are the data experts in any organization. Sound data architecture should focus on extracting the user's knowledge, clarifying ambiguous defintions, and building understandable data structures. These definitions and structures serve as the basis for system development. The first and most well known UFDA technique is Extended Relational Analysis ™ (ERA), which has been proven for decades. More recent techniques include Business Event Analysis & Modeling ™ (BEAM), which is useful for both Transactional Systems (BEAM TSS) and Decision Support Systems (BEAM DSS).