DATA-MINING AGENTS

A data-mining agent operates in a data warehouse discovering information. A
data warehouse brings together information from lots of deferent sources. Data
mining is the process of looking through the data warehouse to find that you can
use to take action, like ways to increase sales or retain customers who are
considering defecting to the competition. Data mining is so called because you
have to sift through a lot of information for the gold nuggets that will affect
the bottom line. This sort of nuggets spotting is similar to what FBI and CIA do
when they bring together little bits of information from diverse source and use
the overall pattern to spot trouble brewing.

As you learned in chapter3, database quires answer question such as, how much
did we spent in transportation in March of this year? Multi dimensional analysis
is the next step in complexity and answers questions such as, how much did we
spend on transportation on the southeast during March of the last five years?
Data mining goes deeper and find answers to questions you may not even have
asked such as, what else do young men buy on Friday after noon when come in to
buy diapers? The answer, Culled by data mining tools, is beer.

One of the most common types of data mining is classification, which finds
patterns in information and categorizes items into those classes. You may
remember that this is just what neural networks do best. So not surprisingly,
neural networks are part many data mining tools. And data mining agents are
another integral parts, since data mining agents search for information in a
data warehouse.

A data-mining agent may detect a major shift in a trend or key indicators. It
can also detect the presence of new information and alert you. Volkswagen uses
an intelligent agent system that acts as an early-warning system about market
conditions. If conditions become such that the assumptions underlying the
company’s strategy are no longer true, the intelligent agent alerts managers.
For example, the intelligent agent might see a problem in some part of the
country that is or will shortly cause payment to slow down. Having that
information early on lets managers formulate a plan to protect themselves.