5 ms·

Maybe I'm missing something, but .. what problem is this solving?

sunpazed 4y ago
Search, data normalisation, equivalencies, recommendation engines, supply chain analytics and reporting, etc. Having a well defined ontology helps power lots of data products, and even build new ones.
fredrikholm 4y ago
I've done contract work for IKEA. When talking to their senior engineers, a common trope was: > I wouldn't know, I've only worked here for 5 years. The sheer volume of new hierarchies replacing old ones, teams being split into other reams, rebranding of departments ... I doubt any one person understands how IKEA works, let alone enough to be a source for others. Perhaps they are projecting onto their customers here.
frakt0x90 4y ago
Agreed the article doesn't make it clear. I know companies like Netflix have built knowledge graphs of their products which they create embeddings of to feed to ML models which helps them make better recommendations. NASA also built one to ease search of safety information when building new things. https://netflixtechblog.com/supporting-content-decision-makers-with-machine-learning-995b7b76006f https://netflixtechblog.com/supporting-content-decision-make... https://neo4j.com/blog/nasa-critical-data-knowledge-graph/ https://neo4j.com/blog/nasa-critical-data-knowledge-graph/
- kendallgclark 4y ago
  NASA has more than one Knowledge Graph. https://www.stardog.com/blog/nasas-knowledge-graph/ https://www.stardog.com/blog/nasas-knowledge-graph/
BatteryMountain 4y ago
Most companies are a mess internally and information/meta data about various parts about the org is badly grouped and/or named. When reporting time comes, you have a big'ol mess to categorize things manually to make sense of it. The same issues spill over into code and thus websites and catalogues (ever wondered why some companies websites are better organised and filterable?, example Dell, but think of a car manufacturer and all their parts), so it really matters that someone or a group sits down and formalize their vocabulary & taxonomy & grouping of things. Meta data is often more important than the actual thing being described! This all plugs into DDD & standardization efforts (see banking and healthcare) and why programmers subconsciously hammers on about "naming things are hard" - whether they are aware of it or not, they are sensing that somehow the order and naming of things matter. We also have to deal with versioning of things, and not just in code, but in hardware too. So it really pays off if done well.
- tanepiper 4y ago
  This (disclosure: I'm one of the tech leads on this project)
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  See also the parametric search available at McMaster Carr: https://www.mcmaster.com/screws/hex-head-screws/ https://www.mcmaster.com/screws/hex-head-screws/ or Digikey: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/ceramic-capacitors/60 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/ceramic-capacitor... or PCpartPicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/ https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/ compared to trying to find the same products on Amazon or AliExpress. Many of the products are available, but every product on those examples can be filtered against comparable products by the specs that matter to the engineers doing the selection. On other sites, the metadata is generated inconsistently by individual sellers.
  - iamjackg 4y ago
    It's very interesting to me that, as an absolute amateur at electronics, I find the Amazon/AliExpress approach infinitely more usable, even though Digi-Key has a better selection of products. Of course, this is because my needs are usually something extremely generic and simple like "I need some 400ohm resistors" or "I need an 8-bit shift register," with a strong emphasis on the "anything goes" aspect. On Digi-Key I get absolutely lost. There are thousands of options, with different form factors, costs, availability, specs, and more. Can I buy 5 of them? What's the lead time? Is it SMD or through? How much is shipping? Which vendor do I choose? On AliExpress, I get a bunch of "5 8-bit shift registers for electronics projects" listings, check a couple of them, look up some info, and purchase one in a few minutes. Of course this means I end up with mediocre, sometimes outright broken parts, but it feels like it's worth the time I save. I wish there was a curated list or an "easy mode" on Digi-Key.
    - somat 4y ago
      Conversly when I want a power jack with a 3/4 inch hole diameter, 3 wires and no more than 1 inch penetration into the chassis. It is so nice to be able to go to a vendor that has actual metadata on the products they are selling. I hate going on amazon and having to wade through 15 pages of stuff. What I have done when I find myself with several similar items on digikey and am unable to make a choice, I will go with whatever has the biggest inventory, the assumption being whatever sells the best will probably be the best... or at least the most available, which is good enough for me.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
contravariant 4y ago
Turns out it's easier to reason with binary relationships so if you only use tables with 2 columns it's somewhat easier to infer things from your data. Categories of products is a good example as they form a transitive relation, but not necessarily a strict hierarchy (any particular entity might be in multiple distinct categories).
neurostack 4y ago
wake up babe new computerphile video on knowledge graphs just dropped https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBm7M0HGzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBm7M0HGzw
katsi111 4y ago
Hi, I'm the author of the blog post. What problem we are solving at IKEA exactly is something I plan to write next about, once we get some numbers in from AB testing etc. We are not there yet to share concrete results. KGs in the general e-commerce space solve search disambiguation and bridging the gap of industry language with customer language; common sense recommendation, especially when more and more customers do not opt-in to sharing their data; and embeddable info box content throughout the customers browsing experience. KG is not a technology but a paradigm shift from an application-centric data modeling (classic data engineering) to a business/purpose/people-centric data modeling. It means that on top of the data layer, the KG enables to access the data via business concepts. It enables e.g. simple questions like which products are suitable for customers that live in small apartments and automatically solves the problem of combining different data sources to answer the question.

Search, data normalisation, equivalencies, recommendation engines, supply chain analytics and reporting, etc. Having a well defined ontology helps power lots of data products, and even build new ones.

fredrikholm 4y ago

I've done contract work for IKEA. When talking to their senior engineers, a common trope was: > I wouldn't know, I've only worked here for 5 years. The sheer volume of new hierarchies replacing old ones, teams being split into other reams, rebranding of departments ... I doubt any one person understands how IKEA works, let alone enough to be a source for others. Perhaps they are projecting onto their customers here.

frakt0x90 4y ago

Agreed the article doesn't make it clear. I know companies like Netflix have built knowledge graphs of their products which they create embeddings of to feed to ML models which helps them make better recommendations. NASA also built one to ease search of safety information when building new things. https://netflixtechblog.com/supporting-content-decision-makers-with-machine-learning-995b7b76006f https://netflixtechblog.com/supporting-content-decision-make... https://neo4j.com/blog/nasa-critical-data-knowledge-graph/ https://neo4j.com/blog/nasa-critical-data-knowledge-graph/

kendallgclark 4y ago
NASA has more than one Knowledge Graph. https://www.stardog.com/blog/nasas-knowledge-graph/ https://www.stardog.com/blog/nasas-knowledge-graph/

BatteryMountain 4y ago

Most companies are a mess internally and information/meta data about various parts about the org is badly grouped and/or named. When reporting time comes, you have a big'ol mess to categorize things manually to make sense of it. The same issues spill over into code and thus websites and catalogues (ever wondered why some companies websites are better organised and filterable?, example Dell, but think of a car manufacturer and all their parts), so it really matters that someone or a group sits down and formalize their vocabulary & taxonomy & grouping of things. Meta data is often more important than the actual thing being described! This all plugs into DDD & standardization efforts (see banking and healthcare) and why programmers subconsciously hammers on about "naming things are hard" - whether they are aware of it or not, they are sensing that somehow the order and naming of things matter. We also have to deal with versioning of things, and not just in code, but in hardware too. So it really pays off if done well.

tanepiper 4y ago
This (disclosure: I'm one of the tech leads on this project)
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
See also the parametric search available at McMaster Carr: https://www.mcmaster.com/screws/hex-head-screws/ https://www.mcmaster.com/screws/hex-head-screws/ or Digikey: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/ceramic-capacitors/60 https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/ceramic-capacitor... or PCpartPicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/ https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/ compared to trying to find the same products on Amazon or AliExpress. Many of the products are available, but every product on those examples can be filtered against comparable products by the specs that matter to the engineers doing the selection. On other sites, the metadata is generated inconsistently by individual sellers.
- iamjackg 4y ago
  It's very interesting to me that, as an absolute amateur at electronics, I find the Amazon/AliExpress approach infinitely more usable, even though Digi-Key has a better selection of products. Of course, this is because my needs are usually something extremely generic and simple like "I need some 400ohm resistors" or "I need an 8-bit shift register," with a strong emphasis on the "anything goes" aspect. On Digi-Key I get absolutely lost. There are thousands of options, with different form factors, costs, availability, specs, and more. Can I buy 5 of them? What's the lead time? Is it SMD or through? How much is shipping? Which vendor do I choose? On AliExpress, I get a bunch of "5 8-bit shift registers for electronics projects" listings, check a couple of them, look up some info, and purchase one in a few minutes. Of course this means I end up with mediocre, sometimes outright broken parts, but it feels like it's worth the time I save. I wish there was a curated list or an "easy mode" on Digi-Key.
  - somat 4y ago
    Conversly when I want a power jack with a 3/4 inch hole diameter, 3 wires and no more than 1 inch penetration into the chassis. It is so nice to be able to go to a vendor that has actual metadata on the products they are selling. I hate going on amazon and having to wade through 15 pages of stuff. What I have done when I find myself with several similar items on digikey and am unable to make a choice, I will go with whatever has the biggest inventory, the assumption being whatever sells the best will probably be the best... or at least the most available, which is good enough for me.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

contravariant 4y ago

Turns out it's easier to reason with binary relationships so if you only use tables with 2 columns it's somewhat easier to infer things from your data. Categories of products is a good example as they form a transitive relation, but not necessarily a strict hierarchy (any particular entity might be in multiple distinct categories).

neurostack 4y ago

wake up babe new computerphile video on knowledge graphs just dropped https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBm7M0HGzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBm7M0HGzw

katsi111 4y ago

Hi, I'm the author of the blog post. What problem we are solving at IKEA exactly is something I plan to write next about, once we get some numbers in from AB testing etc. We are not there yet to share concrete results. KGs in the general e-commerce space solve search disambiguation and bridging the gap of industry language with customer language; common sense recommendation, especially when more and more customers do not opt-in to sharing their data; and embeddable info box content throughout the customers browsing experience. KG is not a technology but a paradigm shift from an application-centric data modeling (classic data engineering) to a business/purpose/people-centric data modeling. It means that on top of the data layer, the KG enables to access the data via business concepts. It enables e.g. simple questions like which products are suitable for customers that live in small apartments and automatically solves the problem of combining different data sources to answer the question.