Title: Devil In Your Data

As I informed the administrator of this BBS, "I read more than a
human being possibly should or could."
     The article "Devil In Your Data" was published in the August
31, 1992 edition of Information Week (IW).  It caught my eye when
it asked the question ,"What lurks beneath the surface of most
corporate information systems,  threatening to shutdown critical
business processes without warning", and the answer was, "Poor-
quality data."
     To support the above answer the article tells a few 'war
stories.'  Sobering is the best word to describe these users'
experiences.
     If that's not enough, IW has a feature called "Fax Vote."
About every week, IW asks a series of questions related to a theme
in an upcoming issue.  In a vote related to this issue, 70 percent
of the respondents reported that business processes at their
organizations have been interruped at least once by corrupted
data.  "Not surprisingly, roughly the same percentage describe the
overall quality of their data as unacceptable."  The article also
reports that most organizations are doing very little about poor-
quality data.
     On the up-side, the article mentions serveral companies that
offer tools to help computer users detect poor-quality data.  It
reports some success stories where total quality managers bought
one of these tools and improved their data reliability.
     The article has some graphic information.  Overall, it is
worth getting a copy and adding it to your TQM solutions 'War Chest'.
Information Week magazine can be found at some public libraries,
EDP managers can get free subscriptions and yours may have a
subscription, or you could get an article reprint from the
publisher:
     CPM Publications, INC.
     600 Community Drive
     Manhasset, NY 11030
     (516)562-5000
     (516)562-5036
     Ask for, Information Week Issue number 389, Cover story,
     "The Devil In Your Data".

     If a photo copy will suffice, please leave me a note on this
BBS.  I will promptly mail you a copy.  The article is 3 pages long
with graphics.

Lori Barnhill