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Creating flexible data quality validation processes using Business Rules

Scheppers, Joris (2009) Creating flexible data quality validation processes using Business Rules.

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Abstract:Over the past few years, the quality of data has become increasingly important to organisations. This is caused by the fact that these organisations rely more and more on the data they collect to make decisions and to react to an ever faster changing environment. Changes in this environment mean changes in the internal processes of an organisation, which in turn puts more emphasis on the need for high quality data. Organisations such as those in the Dutch Health Care system have learned that using high quality data is of major importance. Yet the change in demands on this data is not being met by flexibility of the processes within these organisations. Topicus is currently developing an application to automate the handling of electronic claim messages. The demand on the quality of these claims changes often, and must be met by a flexible validation process. However, this is currently not the case: the validation methods that are available have been implemented hard-code, which makes the process very inflexible to changes. This problem was the justification for this thesis: the application of the Business Rules approach to a data validation process to increase its flexibility and thereby its ability to react to changing demands from the environment. The concept of data quality is explored in detail to ensure a good understanding of what causes data quality to be poor and with which methods and tools the quality of data can be assessed and influenced. The Business Rules approach is also extensively explored to be able to effectively apply this approach to the data validation process. The result is a combined approach to the validation of the quality of data using checks stated in Business Rules and evaluated using a Business Rule Engine from ILOG. The results of the prototype are positive: the rule engine performed well and even uncovered some quality defects that were not expected initially. Subsequently, this thesis concludes with the recommendation to start using Business Rules in future projects where a more flexible data quality validation process is needed. However, more research has to be conducted to fully grasp the change in performance and to assess what exactly theimpact of the use of Business Rules will be in Topicus’ applications.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Clients:
Topicus, Deventer
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Industrial Engineering and Management BSc (56994)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/60714
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