Search Engines for Search Engines
Sheppard Mullin's need to capture and reuse its intellectual capital is something Richard West can relate to. West is in charge of organizational and e-learning initiatives at BAE Systems plc, the massive London-based defense contractor. With more than 90,000 employees worldwide, the company has some predictable problems managing data. In 1999, BAE had more than ten different search engines that trolled its vast universe of unstructured data, including everything from product specs to customer information and manufacturing processes. The situation was so out of control that "we needed a search engine to find the right search engine," jokes West. These engines used simple keyword searches that were not accurate, and employees would sometimes spend half an hour just sifting through all the search results. West's belief that 90 percent of any organization's knowledge is locked inside its workers' heads, led to his conviction that there were millions to be saved by tapping into the company's brainpower, and cutting down on duplicated work.

To solve the problem, BAE Systems went with Autonomy's pattern-recognition software. The technology uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze vast amounts of unstructured data based on natural language queries, and then extracts not just keywords, but actual concepts or ideas behind those words. "It is a very advanced mathematical way of figuring out what 20 words mean in context," says Egan.

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The technology gives BAE engineers the ability to type in complex queries ("Who is currently working on new ways to use bonding rivets on airplanes?") and get the results they need across numerous databases and intranets. In one case, a group of engineers at BAE Military Aircraft Group were looking for a better way to bolt wings to an aircraft's fuselage, and after searching the company's stored knowledge, the engineers discovered that colleagues at another BAE affiliate had already solved the problem. They were quickly able to adopt the manufacturing process, which saved the company millions of dollars, says West.

To date, Autonomy's technology is linked into most of BAE's key business systems, and over the past seven years it has contributed to estimated savings of £65 million (U.S. $120 million) by reducing duplicative efforts. "We have formed a virtual university, a place to go to find out information and know-how," says West.

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