Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality: Methods for Reducing Costs and Increasing Profits

CHAPTER 4

An Overview of Total Quality data Management (TQdM)

“The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.”

–ANONYMOUS

Total Quality data Management (TQdM) is not a program, and it is not simply a process of data measurement or data cleansing. Rather, TQdM is:

• A mind set that acknowledges that everyone in the enterprise is interdependent on each other for information.
• A belief system that quality information has value to the enterprise—in fact, is required—in order for the enterprise processes to perform properly and optimally.
• A value system of customer satisfaction through quality information products.
• A culture in which everyone takes responsibility for continually improving processes to increase customer satisfaction and drive down costs.

TQdM is the habit of continual information process improvement of two categories of processes:

Information systems development processes that define information, develop and implement business processes, information systems, and information architecture and databases.

Business and manufacturing processes that create, update, and delete data, distribute or disseminate information, and retrieve or present information to information producers and knowledge workers.

TQdM seeks to accomplish this by integrating quality management beliefs, principles, and methods into the culture of the enterprise.

This chapter provides a big-picture view of the TQdM methodology. It will help you understand the context for information quality improvement, ...