Dears,Data quality seems to be a hazy concept, but the lack of data quality severely hampers the ability of organizations to effectively accumulate and manage enterprise-wide knowledge. Data quality management is not easy, as is evidenced by these true horror stories of data quality gone wrong. Learn from these mistakes to avoid problems with your own data quality projects.
Mars Orbiter
The Mars Climate Orbiter, a key part of NASA's program to explore the planet Mars, vanished in September 1999 after rockets were fired to bring it into orbit of the planet. It was later discovered by an investigative board that NASA engineers failed to convert English measures of rocket thrusts to newtons, a metric system measuring rocket force, and that was the root cause of the loss of the spacecraft. The orbiter smashed into the planet instead of reaching a safe orbit. This discrepancy between the two measures, which was relatively small, caused the orbiter to approach Mars at too low an altitude. The result was the loss of a $125 million spacecraft and a significant setback in NASA's ability to explore Mars
CD Mail Fraud
David Russo, 33, of Sayreville, NJ, admitted that he received 22,260 CDs by making each address — even if it listed the same post office box — different enough to evade fraud-detection computer programs. Among his methods: adding fictitious apartment numbers, unneeded direction abbreviations and extra punctuation marks. The scam is believed to be the largest of its kind in the nation, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott S. Christie, who prosecuted the case. The introductory offers typically provided nine free CDs with the purchase of one CD at the regular price, plus shipping and handling. Other CDs then had to be purchased later to fulfill club requirements. Russo paid about $56,000 for CDs, said Paul B. Brickfield, his lawyer, or an average of $2.50 each. He then sold the CDs at flea markets for about $10 each, Brickfield said. Russo pleaded guilty to a single count of mail fraud. He faces about 12 to 18 months in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
Closed Account? My Personal experience
Three months after canceling my cellular telephone service, I continue to receive bills from my former service provider indicating that I was being billed for 0.00 — Please pay the bill to avoid penalty charges and till date I am getting calls from Service Reps and I pity them.
Charge Card
A friend of mine is the head of a small home-based business. He received an offer from a major charge card company for a corporate charge card with no annual fee. He accepted, and a short time later, he received his card in the mail. Not long after that, he began to receive the same offer from the same company, but those offers were addressed differently. Evidently, his name had been misspelled on one of his magazine subscriptions, and that version had been submitted to the credit card company as a different individual. Not only that, his wife started to receive offers too. Six months later, this man still gets four or five mail offers per week in the mail from the same company, which evidently not only cannot figure out who he is but also can't recognize that he is already a customer!
These are just a few stories culled out of my interactions with colleagues, or reading the some funny articles. Yet, who has not been subject to some kind of annoyance that can be traced to a data quality problem? I believe everyone of us had experienced such funny horror ones not to blame the corporate house for the mistakes but this gives us lesson to know how much important DQ is for a company .
Your Partner and Companion
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