Most manufacturers would never think of eliminating the quality control function from their production processes. Without quality control, the number of defective products that must be reworked, scrapped or returned would dramatically increase. Almost all consulting/service organizations monitor the quality of the services they deliver to uphold their reputations, ensure satisfied customers and generate repeat business. After all, who would keep a product that falls apart the day after it is purchased or fly on an airplane that does not conduct preflight checks?
Yet ensuring data quality within operational and business intelligence applications is a discipline that is frequently overlooked by many organizations. It is often not until you discover a major problem that could have been avoided through quality control of your data that you recognize the importance of data quality.
Once this occurs, most executives quickly realize that almost all of the organization's...
