Decision Support Systems For Business Intelligence
    by Vicki L. Sauter

 
 
Design Insights: Dirty Data

Any organization that keeps data has a story about what happens when data are not reliable.  One financial organization’s data problems lead a   stock trader to sell 500 shares at $10 apiece instead of 10 shares at $500 apiece.  Similarly, the database for one state lead them to send jury summons to children.  Since these errors were significant, they were noticed.  More often unreliable data are not noticed and so are allowed to impact relationships with customers and suppliers, reduce efficiency of operations, misdirect decisions and waste money.

 

   Page Owner: Professor Sauter (Vicki.Sauter AT umsl.edu)