1. In terms of information logistics (IL), an Information Element (IE) is an information component that is located in the organizational value chain. The combination of certain IEs leads to an information product (IP), which is any final product in the form of information that a person needs to have. When a higher number of different IEs are required, it often results in more planning problems in capacity and inherently leads to a non-delivery of the IP.
To illustrate the concept of an IP, an example is shown of a bottleneck analysis in HR (by J. Willems 2008). Here, the illustration shows how the information elements (e.g. qualifications) build up the information product (e.g. HR file).
2. In terms of ICT, an Information Element (IE) is a part of management frames in the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN protocol. IEs are a device's way to transfer descriptive information about itself inside management frames. There are usually several IEs inside each such frame, and each is built of TLVs mostly defined outside the basic 802.11 specification.
The common structure of an IE is as follows:
← 1 → ← 1 → ← 3 → ← 1-252 → ------------------------------------------------ |Type |Length| OUI | Data | ------------------------------------------------
Whereas the OUI (organizationally unique identifier) is only used when necessary to the protocol being used, and the data field holds the TLVs relevant to that IE.
An information element can also be described as the smallest component of an information deliverable. An infel can be a diagram, text, a price quote, a calculation, an approval, and so forth. In general, if several pieces of information flow together from a single source they can be grouped as a single infel. Documents usually comprise of several infels and work in the modern office environment can be described as the motion of information as knowledge workers collects and assembles their necessary infels in the creation of an information deliverable. The notion of infels is key in improving knowledge worker productivity. Documents are just too big and their movement is the “official” process movement that often masks the true information flow. The infel concept enables analysis of information flow into its constituent parts in the attempt to find the one best way to perform a highly information intense work process. The grouping of infels into a information element matrix enables elimination of information waste by increased situational visibility, identification of independent tasks, task resequencing, task elimination or task exporting, simulation of enhanced task sequencing, earned value analysis and organizational design. The concept of infel was originally invented by George Gonzalez-Rivas and later developed as a key paradigm in the Knowledge Worker Lean approach by George Gonzalez-Rivas and Linus Larsson.