The Hungarian "online culture" is only ten years old. The first online information service started at OMIKK (Hungarian Technical Library and Information Center) and it has spread to information institutes, pharmaceutical factories, universities and research institutes. Today, electronic information retrieval has become the most up-to-date form of information gathering (Roboz, 1991).

The possible ways of collecting information (referring to gathering of information in support of industrial activities) include at least the following:

One can only connect to large database systems with the help of password(s) which one can get from the database centers. Most databanks provides text/bibliographic data (many are full-text databases), while others contain standards, patents, market and news information, and data of business activities. There are also numerical databases, storing information such as time series. The index databases are to control the flow of information.

Many large database centers such as DIALOG, DATA STAR, STN, and MAXWELL, make efforts to provide information in a "user friendly" way. Information retrieval can be performed by using available search commands, but some of them can be dated. The online user has to be aware of these problems all the time. There are competitions among database centers, who frequently try to provide better reference guides, more up-to-date documenta-tions, more user-training courses, etc. in order to attract users. In the past, although online training courses were organized mainly in well-developed countries, trainers from some large data centers from the "Eastern European" countries do come to Budapest for their trainings as well. This fact proves that we have also stepped up as a effective online partner.

It must be mentioned here that language creates big barriers against the spreading of the online systems in Hungary. For example, there is no problem for the American or English experts to use the computerized information since they are using their native language. Yet, a Hungarian expert has to deal with the language problem too in addition to their difficulties in using computerized system (from the point of forming the questions to understanding the answers given by the machine). The Hungarian online intermediater tries to help by giving supporting comments in Hungarian for the foreign materials and describes the systems and their offerings in Hungarian. This approach is important in order to decrease the fear on the users part in attempting to use new systems. The traditional practice shows even if the end-user does know English, it's still useful to have Hungarian information professionals present during the online session. It is especially important when the online intermediater conducting searches in a quite unknown field.

Cost of online searching is a major problem. Many have found it to be too expensive to use. In the 80's, the scientific-technical users first became the electronic information market group. Today there is a demand for special services for financial and company data, market-ing, business information, thus new services are in the limelight.This is because that there is a trend for and general interest in business markets, special education, social and educational problems.

In the information mechanisms the industrialized countries have been developing the CD-ROM culture. The use of the databases transferred into laser discs (previously online access) opened a new way in information search (Microsoft, 1989). This tool has been born after creating CD-Audio and many workstations have been established in Hungary also. These and the other optical products will entirely change the life of the Hungarian libraries and infor-mation institutes and through their usage the information sources are widened also. The experiences till now shows that the end-users themselves work more effectively with the CD-ROMs, because there is no fear of making mistakes during the search. There is also no worry of spending time during searching in using CD-ROMs, and the quiet circumstances make the searches immensed .

Yet, the users must be informed of these information systems -- online search, CD-ROM and others. They have to be be able to provide useful information to the field of everyday life and industry.

2. PROBLEMS OF THE INFORMATION END-USER

The technologies went through a great change in the last 100 years. Earlier even simple products and tasks "were produced" by few professionals. Today complex information pro-blems can be solved by cooperation of some hundreds or thousands of professionals because of mass production and the penetration of sciences to the industry. Information technology and information services have developed very fast, but potentials in utilizing these new information technologies have only been partially efficient, even in the industrially developed countries. "The information hunger" and "the information dumping" are existing at the same time.

We have a lot of information of the past, but in many cases the interpolation of that can't show us the future. We are anxious that the revolutionary transformation is going to effect the possibility of manufacturing and the markets too. Our industrial experience shows that only those enterprises that "survive" the changes have kept their eyes continuously on the changes of vendor markets and the user needs. After that it was necessary to establish R&D activities which were controlled by the market. The engineers of enterprises were willing to concentrate on problems of manufacturing a product. This situation has been aggravated by the behavior of experts of R&D departments (of enterprises or research institutes) that they turned their attention to the very interesting and unsolved problems - not renumerated in time by the market - only because of prestige and professional hobby.

It may be that it is one of the explanations that the enterprises - producing up-to-date pro-ducts and requiring significant material and spiritual resources - suffered losses and declared bankruptcy. The analyzes showed that such products don't meet with the user's requirements on prices, technical parameters, availability, and so therefore the products of competitors have been bought which met to a better comparatively the needs of solvent demands. The question is, how can we meet the market requirement. First we must bear in mind that every product has a life cycle. The product can be a manufactured one, technologies and services. Of course we can see the big difference still inside of the category of products. For example inside of the consumer goods the life of the produced shoes extends 1-2 years, the televisions and some cars can meet the needs of wide consumer structures to 8-10 years by the work and sell functions. Of course we have to take it into consideration, that not only the vendor market must be traced with our attention (where we sell our products), but the purchaser, and moreover the market of technology, must be traced as well. The connection among life cycles of needs, technologies and products are shown on Figure 1 (Kotler, 1991).

As it follows from the pictures there is a permanent task for an enterprise that being the continuous assurance of the high level R&D activities. The activities of R&D establish the design and manufacturing of the new products. Of course the information system of the enterprise has to meet those requirements. But how does the information system connect to the activities of R&D, manufacturing and business? Firstly, the marketing department (or external service) has to provide information to the designer who plans for the relevant technical parameters. Of course there is a need for concrete specification of a given market segments' requirements.

The designers and manufacturers of products very often say: "We engineers produced the product and you (economists and financial experts) must generate the profit." But we must realize that the cost is first of all a technical category. The function that carries elements of a product (parts, sub-assemblies) decides the internal investments. Appropriate information service is essential in the phase of R&D or the design phase. The fact is that generally we are not only actors in the markets. We have to be informed on the prices, quality, parameters, etc. of the concurrent products. We will be alerted when a better product with lower price is intro-duced. We would suspect that the competitors probably have better solutions in the design and technology. We also have to turn continuously our attention to the novelties of materials and the sub-assemblies purchased by us. We referred earlier, that the position of the designer, who is generally the main expert of the product "function" is aggravated by understanding of other professionals' "results". Then, this knowledge is further integrated into the product and the technology used. .

We predict that in the future there will be significantly important functional definition in the use of products. The coordination of multi-professional and technical/economical fields can be more effective by using Value Analyses.

3. VALUE ANALYSIS: A SIGNIFICANT TOOL IN THE ECONOMY

Value Analysis is not a magic, but a method based on system theory, which stimulates us to require an effective technical-economic way of thinking. The improvement of marketability of products, based on first of all intellectually creative work, and the technical-economic requirements reasonably required by the users on a minimum cost level (but not more) and through extraordinary short time is realized by the Value Analysis. The Value Analysis was developed during World Was II in the USA and first utilized for substitution of materials. According to the analysis of more than a thousand successful projects, the Value Analysis realizes the product having the same or better quality by the consummation of 20-30% less sources (Miles, 1973; Modic, 1990).

The majority of expected results can be realized without investment. The cost invested into Value Analysis has achieved 10-30 times return. It is important to underline that the value Analysis is a point of view and the same time it is a problem solving method by the application of which the weak points of the products can be discovered and the recommendations be pre-pared for the optimal value combination.

3.1. The Connection of the Vendor and Purchaser Markets

The industrially developed countries applied the method of Value Analysis in many fields of economic management. The domestic and foreign professional literature generally focuses on the solution of a given task, product and production development and investment realiza-tion, by the use of Value Analysis. But it is necessary to develop the unified system of value management and its integration into the enterprises' operational processes. We can achieve two main targets in this way:

4. CONCLUSION

The Value Analysis has connections to information technology in two different ways:

• The proper information technology can have a significant role in the realization of the product and production planning by Value Analysis. Earlier we discussed the case of a successful experiment, when in the phase of R&D an information expert took part in the process of Value Analysis as well as successful product development. Information was provided by information specialist via the use of online searching (Jáki &Nádasdi, 1990).

• The development of a second connection of Value Analysis is possible in the plan of information processes and in its optimal operation.

The provision of needed information at the right time is not easy. Information experts can gain a great deal in the widespread application of the Value Analysis. We have taken initial steps in this application, but we are only at the beginning (Nádasdi, 1988).
 
 

REFERENCES

Jáki, É, & Nádasdi, F., "The support of value engineering ( VE ) developments with online technique," In '90 Information Management Practice and Education: International Meeting, Budapest, 24-27 April 1990. Budapest, Hungary: National Technical Information Centre and Library, 1990.

Kotler, Ph. Marketing Management: Elemzés, Tervezés, Végrehajtás és Elenörzés . Müszaki K.: Budapest, 1991.

Microsoft CD-ROM 1 989-1990 Yearbook . .Oberlin, S. & Cox, J., comp. Richmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1989.

Miles, L .D. Értékelemzés. Közgazdasági és Jogi K., 1973.

Modic, S.J., "This is the time: Value analysis evolves into value management," Purchasing World, pp. 32-38 (Febryart 1990).

Nádasdi, F., Üj döntéselökészitési módszerek alkalmazásának lehetöségei az informáciá-gazdálkodás területén. A Posta Kisérleti Intézet Tudományos Napjai "Távközlés, gazdaság, társadalom". Budapest, Október 5-7, 1988.

Roboz, P. Tizéves az Online Információkeresés Magyarországon. Tud. Müsz .Táj. 38 .évf. 1991. 1 =-2. sz. pp.3-9.