Managing technical data and information systems into the next millennium

In getting to the next millennium, we are confronted with a serious challenge that threatens the catastrophic collapse of our information systems infrastructure. The effort to deal with that will, of necessity, lead us to new ways of understanding and managing our data and information systems. This paper explores the nature of this infrastructure and some new concepts and techniques that will be needed to save it. If applied successfully, such concepts and techniques will transform the way we manage our data and information systems.