TABLE OF CONTENTS Many important corporate initiatives, such as Business-to-Business commerce, integrated Supply Chain Management, and Enterprise Resources Planning are at a risk of failure unless data quality is seriously considered and improved. In one study of a major manufacturer, it was found that 70% of all orders had errors. Aspects of this problem have even gained the attention of the Wall Street Journal, which reported that "A major financial institution was embarrassed because of a wrong data entry of an execution order of $500 million " "Some Northeast states are filing multi-million dollar suits against TRW for bad credit data " "Mortgage companies miscalculated home owners' adjustable rate monthly mortgage payments, totaling multi-billion dollars " The major news networks have also reported that many patients died or became seriously ill because of prescription data errors, prompting the Clinton Administration to issue an executive order to address the problem. Anecdotes of high-stake data quality problems abound in the academic literature and news articles.
The field of data quality has witnessed significant advances over the last decade. Today, researchers and practitioners have moved beyond establishing data quality as a field to resolving data quality problems, which range from data quality definition, measurement, analysis, and improvement to tools, methods, and processes. As a result, numerous data quality resources are now available for the reader to utilize [ [10], [29]]. Many professional books [ [11], [12], [19], [24], [26]], journal articles, and conference proceedings have also been produced. Journal articles...
