KM Chicago April 12th meeting: Commercial Sector Applications of Geographic Information Systems, Dr. Charles Linville

1. Business Operations
Intelligence/Data Research
Warehousing
Geographic
Knowledge
Information
Management
Systems

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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.”

5. 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)

6. 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

7. Growth of GIS Industry
Courtesy of Charles
Foundyller - Daratech.

8. 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.

9. Selected GIS
Representation 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.

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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 )

13. 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.

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

15. Opportunities Also Have
Geographic Dimensions
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) 4:01pm 10/02/2007
– Archer Daniels Midland CFO Doug Schmalz
said 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."

16. What does the network look like?
(ADM Analyst Day
November 8, 2006)

17. ADM’s Competitors Think
Geographically as Well

18. 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.

19. 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 day
http://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.

20. Where is GIS Now?

21. Those in a variety of industries
think 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 material
from Forrester Research provide additional
perspectives.

22. 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

23. 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]

24. 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 Office
Chicago, IL
221 North LaSalle Street, Suite 863
Chicago, IL 60601
312-609-0966

25. 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 Management
Source: ESRI

26. Examples from Ploughman Portfolio
• National crop production and logistics
• Detection of development from satellite
imagery
• Retail site selection
• Market zone analysis

28. 2
…and running the
same automated
processes for both…
1
By examining time
series images from 3
two different time …changes over time
periods and are readily identified.
examining the
differences…

29. Retail Site Selection
…relevant metrics can be overlaid
visually to asses the relative
strengths of different areas. See
the employment density below.
2
1
Given a set of competing locations
for a business and a handful of
locations of interest….

30. Commodity Market Zone Analysis
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.

31. Where is GIS Going?

32. 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

33. 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.

34. 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

35. Supply Chain Inspection

36. A Satisfied Collaborator and his Friend

37. 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