Developing a generic data translation platform

Abstract

The world is becoming increasingly more data orientated. This can be seen across all industries and is evident when looking at the global Big Data drives. This is also the case for the industrial sector. lncreasingly more data gets generated in this industry and the value obtained is becoming increasingly more important. The problem, however, is that data comes in different forms and formats and these also tend to change as the underlining technology changes. To perform analysis on data, with constantly changing formats, is a difficult and time consuming task. It is easy to motivate the development of a platform that translates the data from the different formats into a predefined standard format. However, the effect that the environment plays has in the translator design further presents a number of difficult questions. Questions such as how will the users of this platform dictate what is required from a platform, or how will the type of data influence the design of a platform like this, arise. Answering these questions with the goal of designing a platform that can solve the particular translation needs is the focus of this study. As part of the study other pre-existing translation platforms were evaluated and found to be inadequate to address the specific requirement. The literature further indicated that large complex systems such as these should be developed by decomposing the complete system into smaller sub-systems thereby modelling the complete system as a system of systems. In order to achieve this, there needs to be a form of interoperability (ability to exchange information and act upon each other) between the smaller systems. This system of systems concept was used in the design of the platform. ln researching how the environment (the one the platform is used in) would influence the design of the platform, a Design Science Research approach has been followed. Design Science Research states that similar to a natural scientist doing research on some phenomenon in nature by studying this phenomenon in the environment it occurs (e.g. Newton researching gravity by studying the fall of an apple from a tree). So too can the Design Science Researcher do research on some artefact by studying the workings of that artefact in its environment. By following a Design Science Research approach it was possible to identify how the platform interacted with the rest of the environment wherein the translator was used in as well as what requirements the environment imposes on the platform. It was further possible to study the effect of the nature of the data on the platform and how it was used. By knowing this effect it was clear how the design of the platform should be changed in order to accommodate the nature of the data. The study indicated that by using Design Science Research it was possible to study the effects that the external environment has on the translation platform design. With this information, the translation platform was designed for a specific industrial application . The implementation of the translation platform automated the manual processes currently used. The result of the study was validated by measuring the reduction in man-hours needed between using the platform and doing the translation manually. Using the platform saved the company enough man-hours that a full-time graduate employee could be freed up to do more important work