Utility Cost Perspectives in Data Quality Management

• Published in: The Journal of computer information systems Vol. 50; no. 2; pp. 127 - 135
• Main Authors: Even, Adir, Shankaranarayanan, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Stillwater Taylor & Francis 01.12.2009; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: and Metadata; Costs; Data mining; Data processing; Data Quality Management; Data Warehouse; Data warehouses; Decision making; Economic development; Error correction & detection; Information Value; Inventory; Management decisions; Manufacturing; Metadata; Product data management; Quality improvement; Quality management; Studies; Total quality
• ISSN: 0887-4417; 2380-2057
• DOI: 10.1080/08874417.2009.11645391

The growing costs of managing data demand a closer examination of associated cost-benefit tradeoffs. As a step towards developing an economic perspective of data management, specifically data quality management, this study describes a value-driven model of data products and the processes that produce them. The contribution to benefit (utility) is associated with the use of data products and costs attributed to the different data processing stages. Utility/cost tradeoffs are thus linked to design and administrative decisions at the different processing stages. By modeling and quantifying the economic impact of these decisions, this study shows how economically superior data quality management policies may be developed. To illustrate it, the study uses the model to develop a data quality management policy for online error correction. The results indicate that decisions that consider economic tradeoffs can be very different compared with decisions that are driven by technical and functional requirements only.