According to Ohmae (1989), the new global marketplace requires that capital becomes more mobile than ever and that relevant competitive information be made readily available to industry competitors in such a way that response times are dramatically reduced. Accordingly, to prosper in this competitive environment, firms must adopt a competitive approach which leads to continuous improvement in strategic advantage. Information Technology has been recognised as enabling the formulation of such strategies.

The business environment in which organisations currently operate is extremely competitive. Porter and Millar (1985) reported that organisations are realising that traditional approaches to achieving and maintaining competitive advantage are no longer sufficient. On the other hand, Gustin et. al. (1994) recognised that information and knowledge are increasingly being regarded as resources to be used by an organisation in attaining and retaining competitive advantage. In addition, Garcia (1997) and Phillips (1997) highlighted how some organisations, particularly professional service firms, consider information and knowledge as key business assets and how they spend considerable effort to capture the collective knowledge.

In recent years, heightened attention to the employment of Information Technology in key global business functions is due in large part to the Total Quality Movement and Business Process Re-engineering. Overall process performance, which depends upon the close coordination of the participating business functions, requires sound decision making which in turn requires information to posses superior qualities.

The manufacturing industry is a good example of organisations using information to gain competitive advantages. This is because the complexity of raw materials and manufacturing processes, demanding customers and fierce competition make it essential that the manufacturer know exactly what is happening in the plant. The better the quality of information, the better the manufacturer’s ability to assess the situation and in turn to compete and respond faster to customers’ needs.

Akers and Porter (1995) concluded that the provision of critical information at any level of an organisation can have implications for competitive advantage. At the highest echelons of an organisation, critical information is crucial to successful strategic planning. Duff (1996) and Mitskavich (1996) also reported that at the operational level, availability of critical information can result in increased organisational efficiencies such as increased sales, decreased inventory, improved customer service, shortened production lead times and lowered labour costs.

The present period of history has been characterised as the Information Age. In order to realise the maximum competitive advantage from information and knowledge, organisations need to have in place effective information and knowledge management systems. Such systems are necessary because the volume of information and knowledge available which must be processed by organisations has increased phenomenally. According to Chaleff (1995), information distribution and storage is growing out of control, becoming more disorderly and increasingly complex. Employees are being overwhelmed with information and knowledge to such an extent that it has become a burden.

Chaleff (1995) suggested that the burden can be overcome at the individual level by training knowledge workers to sort and process large volumes of information and work, and at the group level by organisations establishing a process to find the balance points in information systems between distributing critical information and performing productive work.

But what is the critical information and how is it to be determined? Gustin et al. (1994) arrived at these same questions when they examined the computerisation and implementation of the integrated logistics concept. They found that integration cannot be achieved without free flow of critical information but were unable to state what that critical information was. In addition, Martinsons (1993) identified critical organisational information to be important when introducing Knowledge-Based Systems.

Duff (1996) defined Critical Information thus: "The word "critical" says everything about the importance of these documents. Losing or misusing them has severe, intolerable consequences: direct revenue loss, lawsuits, competitive pressures, damage to reputation and credibility, loss of important certifications, fines, and even loss of life in extreme cases." Furthermore, Duff (1996) introduced the more general definition of Critical Information to business: ". . . a document is business critical if its contents are sold for value to customers, used to create a product or service to be sold, or used to respond to external factors. A successful business-critical information delivery system has to meet the needs of three user groups: document producers, document consumers, and application administrators." Accordingly, the definition of a business-critical document varies from industry to industry, but in general a document is business critical if its contents are:

• Sold for value to customers;
• Used to create a product or service sold to customers; or
• Used to respond to external factors: government regulators, competitive pressures, standards certification, external audit, etc.

Another view of Critical Information has been given by Chaleff (1995): "We often fail to distinguish between information that we might want to read and information that requires us to act. A distribution list that disgorges 200 messages a day totally obscures the three messages that require action."

According to Mitchell (1997), "Marketing professionals all too often fail to look for insights from their traditional enemy: the finance department. Yet the accounts department has a record of everyone the firm does business with, and this list can reveal vital information such as whether the customer base is growing or shrinking, which customers are spending more or less on what, who the most valuable customers are, and so on." Mitchell (1997) added further: "It's amazing how valuable this information can be. Take one very simple example: the handling of customer enquiries. If a customer phones to ask for a brochure, how many businesses ask simple questions such as 'where did you find out about us, have you done business with us before, and is there any particular problem we might be able to help you with?' How many follow up an inquiry with a polite 'would you like to know more?' And how many keep a tally on the flow and nature of these enquiries? If one particular product generates more enquiries than it does sales, does that mean that it's tapping into a real opportunity but somehow putting people off? Likewise with complaints. Is the number rising or falling, and if so, why? Is there any pattern of complaints?".

The importance of Critical Information is best highlighted by Duff (1996): "From policies and procedures, to ISO 9000 quality control standards, to marketing and sales data, to legal records, business-critical documents contain the information that an enterprise would be seriously crippled or fatally wounded without."

In order to manage, managers need Critical Information that facilitates their decision making and assists them to: i) Evaluate their department's performance, budget reports, staff turnover etc. ii) Determine short and long-range plans for their departments and iii) Co-ordinate and control their department's activities.

Not all information available to the decision maker is of equal degree of importance, i.e. "Critical". Although decisions can be made on the basis of Critical Information alone, non-critical information may be required at variable degrees of importance, i.e. "Criticalness", for the process of decision making. In addition, Critical Information’s main purposes are to: a) Create efficient operations, b) Provide control and c) Measure performance, compare results with the standards and take corrective action if necessary.

According to Duff (1996), businesses that can keep critical information in the hands of front-line workers have a competitive advantage because their core operations are more efficient. Furthermore, Mitskavich (1996) reported that, "Immediate availability of critical information has made nearly every department more efficient, a big factor contributing to a 20% increase in sales and a 30% decrease in inventory. The company has also improved customer service, shortened production lead times and lowered labor costs." Chaleff (1995) added, "At the individual level, knowledge workers need to be trained to sort and process large volumes of information and work. At the group level, companies must establish a process to find the balance points in information systems between distributing critical information and performing productive work all systems move toward growing disorder and on the way there, they get more and more complex."

Drucker (1992) highlighted the role of automated decision in providing more control to assist in directing and managing resources more efficiently. This implies that automated decisions could be an effective management-support tool and could complement the work of staff, freeing them to do more challenging and higher value activities, provide just-in-time training to non-experts, and be used to create "intelligent" front-ends for existing databases.

Soliman (1998) reported that the application of Knowledge-Based Systems was never intended to replace human staff, but rather seeks to increase their effectiveness and make their knowledge more accessible. Furthermore, the introduction of Knowledge-Based Systems could ultimately lead to encouraging managers to provide higher productivity and leverage their professional expertise.

As competition intensifies many organisations are finding that their processes are becoming more complex and global. Furthermore the ever increasing customers’ demands for quality, cheaper goods and faster response time has led organisations to search for more efficient and faster techniques for reviewing and examining their processes. Enterprise knowledge management has emerged as an effective tool for analysing processes and also for redesigning them.

In Enterprise Modelling the initial steps of analysis are concerned with evaluating the existing processes. According to Soliman (1998), this technique is known as Process Mapping, which is an essential tool in understanding the processes, and in obtaining more detailed and in depth information about them. Information such as boundaries, input and output and other process characteristics is essential for effective and efficient control of process redesign. This type of detailed knowledge is obtainable by micro-mapping. There are many levels of detail obtainable from micro-mapping the processes. Soliman (1998) added that the more levels of micro-mapping the more accurate information about processes and hence the more effective knowledge management of the enterprise processes. It is also important to mention that not all information about processes is relevant to their redesigning and management. Only relevant and critical information needs to be taken into account for process redesign and management.

Process mapping is very time consuming and hence costly. However, as the Knowledge-Base technology matures, organisations can no longer afford not to make use of this technology in order to reduce the time and cost of Enterprise process appraisal. This could lead to substantial reduction in the number of duplicate processes and could also increase the organisation’s ability to simplify its processes and respond to customers much faster. The overall impact is the likelihood of reduction in manufacturing cost and hence increases in the profitability and viability of the business.

A comprehensive identification of all organisational critical information can be made and an instrument (Critical Matrix) could be developed to glean this information from various trial organisations. The instrument (Critical Matrix) could be developed and used with any or all of the following items:

• Critical Information Name – the unique identifying name for the particular incidence of critical information;
• Description – a detailed description of what the critical information represents;
• Category / Type – a means for grouping similar incidences of critical information;

• Rank / Rating – a means for identifying the relative importance of the critical information;

• Source / Producer – where the critical information originates from, for example an individual or department, internally or externally;
• Destination / Consumer / User – where the information ultimately is used, for example an individual or department, internally or externally;

• Authority / Security – who has the relevant authority to access the critical information.

This instrument (Critical Matrix) represents the foundation for identification of process Critical Information which is later used in the management of knowledge about these processes.

Along these lines, the CIM-OSA Standards Committee (1989) sub-divided processes into three main areas: manage, operate and support. Manage processes are regarded as those processes which are concerned with strategy and direction setting as well as with business planning and control, while operate processes are viewed as those processes which are directly related to satisfying the requirements of the external customer, i.e. value added processes. One example is the logistics supply chain (from Order to Delivery - OtoD).

Business enterprises usually consist of a series of value chains (processes) which contribute to the creation and the delivery of products or services to customers. The enterprise business process (overall process) is made up of a series of steps designed to produce and deliver products or services to customers.

In order to define the enterprise business processes, it is imperative that organisations identify core processes. Experience has shown that most organisations’ core processes are within the range of 5 to 10 processes. These core processes are vital to the survival of the enterprise. Examples of core processes are Manufacturing Process, Marketing Process etc.

In general the visual representation used to portray the process tends to isolate critical information required at each level of abstraction throughout the entire process. Fewer levels of the map result in greater abstraction, i.e. if more details are sought, then higher levels of mapping would be required. It is common to reach a point at which no more useful information can be obtained from micro-mapping the process any further. Obviously performing more micro-mapping to obtain more details would result in more expense. On the other hand more process details would reduce the likelihood of obtaining defective work from the process. Soliman (1998) has shown that this will lead to an overall saving in manufacturing costs.

According to Curtis et al. (1992) there is a link between the accuracy of results obtained from a process and the level of detail of that process. This is because more information about the process will ultimately lead to a better design. On the other hand if the process is designed using very little information, it is likely to be an inefficient process.

The information contained in higher levels is useful in determining which activities are more critical and which activities could be reviewed for greater efficiency. The following diagram (Figure 1) illustrates the Critical Information Map for the supervisory functions in a manufacturing setting.

Figure 1: Critical Information Diagram for the Supervisory Function in Manufacturing.

The above diagram shows all Critical Information flow. From this diagram, it would be possible to determine which activities could be classified as non-critical activities and hence contain non-critical information. This is necessary in order to identify areas where more attention could be given to functions requiring Critical Information. Critical physical activities such as carrying documentation and design drawings to the floor could be replaced by computerised processes carrying Critical Information. This approach could eliminate the need to spend valuable production time distributing documents and drawings. This type of process analysis is possible using the Critical Information approach and is likely to result in more efficient processes.

Accordingly the Enterprise Knowledge Management approach using Critical Information is likely to result in productivity improvements, concentrating on product development cycle times, market responsiveness, customer-focused operations and service quality (Soliman and Clark, 1996). This makes the principles of redesigning processes fundamentally different from the historic cost and control mode of operations. It is crucial to extend any redesign effort to include all members of the value-added chain, otherwise the much-sought dramatic performance improvements will not be realised. This is precisely the role Critical Information plays in Enterprise Knowledge Management. This role serves as a harness to direct the organisation to greater competitiveness.

It is widely recognised that Critical Information such as special product quality control, and detailed maintenance of records for traceability is but one of many of companies’ requirements in meeting their contractual obligations and in having efficient operations (Clark and Soliman 1995). This Critical Information is best obtained from Knowledge Management of the Enterprise.

In this paper an approach for identifying and classifying Critical Information is presented. The technique has been applied to a process in a manufacturing setting. The role of Critical Information is important in supporting the management of the Enterprise Knowledge. Using Critical Information could result in more efficient management of Enterprise Knowledge and is likely to result in:

It is also envisaged that the implementation of the above approach could lead to benefits such as:

1. Reduction in wasted efforts, reworks and non-conforming products;
1. Improving communication between the various parts of the organisation;
2. Improving vendors’ selection method;
3. Comparing various suppliers on a number of selection criteria;
4. Reduction in lead-times;
5. Increasing customers’ satisfaction;
6. Efficient utilisation of resources;
7. Effective management of the enterprise.