For each item that comes off the production line in a factory there is a comprehensive record of every stage of the manufacturing process and the smallest technical details. This makes quality control easier – both for the manufacturing company and for supply chain partners. However, if the entire dataset is provided along with the products, this can also result in trade secrets being revealed to the competition. Stefan Thalmann, director of the Business Analytics and Data Science Center (BANDAS-Center)
at the University of Graz, is researching this phenomenon and trying to find a remedy.
“This digital information is usually so extensive that the companies themselves are not aware of the critical knowledge that can be extracted from it,” explains Thalmann, who specialises in business information systems. Small and medium-sized enterprises in particular often lack the resources to safeguard their innovations and their infrastructure, or for the necessary legal backup.
Modern technologies are not only gateways for misuse of information, however, but also offer protection from it. “The most important factor is good risk analysis for any datasets that are shared,” according to Thalmann. Decision makers should be able to assess how easily sensitive information can be reconstructed from these records. Algorithms can then be developed to anonymise the data in such a way that only essential and non-critical details are passed on. Another method is to use a model based on artificial intelligence that has been trained in advance with the relevant data.
To protect a company effectively from misuse of its data, appropriate organisational measures also need to be introduced and – as in other security matters – a clearly defined plan of action. “It is important to raise awareness within the company and to train employees – in an emergency every minute counts,” says Thalmann. Since supply chains are often extremely complex, this kind of plan is not a straightforward undertaking. In the automobile industry, for instance, there are up to twelve levels of suppliers, all sharing data amongst themselves. “It becomes very difficult to identify who is sharing what information with whom,” explains business information expert Thalmann.
A detailed report on this research is published in the latest edition of UNIZEIT.