Facilitating knowledge management - Concept modelling for exploring information solutions

Through clever use of information solutions in a wide sense, a business can facilitate its operations and promote its strategies. However, as careful considerations are needed to understand and leverage the concept structures involved, the aim of this paper is to elaborate on concept modelling for exploring information solutions, In the first main part of the paper, different types of information solutions are presented and discussed to clarify key characteristics, based on the dimensions of personalised-codified and external-internal to the business. The second part examines a number of concept modelling techniques, including OPR models, UML class diagrams, semantic nets, organisational charts, and computer network diagrams. In different ways, these techniques enable a bottom-up analysis of the concept structures embedded in the information solutions of the business. In the third and final part of the paper, two main distinctions among the modelling techniques are discussed against the requirements of information solutions. The first distinction concerns the focus on singular concepts vs. concept types, and the second on hierarchical vs. lateral relationships.