In just about every field of work, there are quality measures in place to ensure customer satisfaction and product/service effectiveness. Manufacturing companies rely on quality control processes to minimize defects and reworks. Consultants measure the quality of their services to ensure repeat business. Journalist rely on quality information and leads to maintain integrity and credibility. But when it comes to corporate data, many organizations fail to understand the significance and drawbacks of unreliable or inconsistent data. This article discusses five quality challenges many organizations face and ways they can be more proactive in managing data. Among the primary reasons for inconsistent or unusable data are: bad data from human data-entry error poorly-structured process lack of data standards across functional units or divisions Ensuring the quality of data can become extremely difficult when you attempt to integrate data from across multiple sources. Before your organization begins a data-driven initiative it is important that you address issues of data quality within your existing data sources. Aside from the complexity of the actual process of ensuring the quality of your data, below are five challenges you may face when beginning this initiative: Data ownership Non standard data requirements Choosing the Right Data Management Tools Placing Responsibility for the Quality of Data on the IT Department Reactive vs. Proactive Mentality Data Ownership Data ownership, especially on the enterprise level, is a very complicated transition, and can contribute to significant pushback within an organization. Often the business unit managers or technicians entrusted with the implementation of an application assume ownership of the information used within that system. This introduces potential conflicts when these individuals must participate in enterprise-wide data initiatives and expose the internals of their information management to data quality audits and reviews. Non Standard Data Requirements Traditionally data management is structured where the business unit’s management chain has authority over the information used within the business unit, and each business unit has its own requirements for quality of data. Once data management progresses toward an enterprise-wide set of standards, there is often push back or hesitation by the business unit managers to invest time and resources in addressing issues that were not relevant at the business unit level. Choosing the Right Data Management Tools A frequent response by organizations with respect to building a data quality management program is to immediately begin to research the purchase of automated data cleansing or profiling tools. While some data quality tools do provide some benefit right out of the box, without a well-defined understanding of the types and scope of specific quality problems, and without a management plan for addressing discovered problems, buying a tool will not have a significant return on investment in achieving long-term strategic goals. Placing Responsibility for the Quality of Data on the IT Department Business units often assume that any issues regarding the quality of data are IT issues, and should be addressed by the technical teams. However, the business rules associated with running the business is best managed by the business client? Reactive vs. Proactive Mentality Most data quality programs are designed to react to data quality events instead of determining how to prevent problems from occurring in the first place. A mature data quality program determines where the risks are, what the objective metrics are for determining levels and impact of data quality compliance, and approaches to ensure high levels of quality. Ways your organization can be more proactive towards data quality management: Ask for data quality performance measures as part of your business requirements gathering and prioritizing process. Determine, along with the business, how you are going to handle data quality issues both during the development process and when your processes are operational. Monitor data quality at every stage where data is touched Create a data quality management dashboard to monitor the agreed upon data quality performance measures.

The National Council on Technical and Vocational Education and Training hosted its Quality Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, March 31 at the Knutsford Court Hotel. The purposes of the Awards Function are: 1.To identify and award those Accredited Training Organizations (atos) that have exemplified quality in their management system and have made strides in continuous improvement in their operations; 2.To distribute certificates of accreditation to all Accredited Training Organizations (atos); 3.To promote nctvets commitment to quality and quality improvement by recognizing excellence in the TVET system.

North Shore-LIJ is partnering with Allscripts an industry leader in providing innovative software, connectivity and information solutions to make available to our physicians and providers a subsidized Electronic Health Record (EHR) solution that in addition to helping to improve care, will also save time and money. Computerized patient records offer more than just an electronic version of your paper chart; they allow you to raise the level of care you provide by making your patients’ information available to you anytime / anywhere, facilitating communication and sharing of patient information between providers, and providing clinical tools to support the delivery of comprehensive, evidence-based care.

“Give In to Me” is the tenth track on Michael Jackson’s 1991 studio album Dangerous. The single peaked at #1 in New Zealand for 4 consecutive weeks, and at #2 on the UK Singles Chart. It features former Guns N’ Roses lead guitarist Slash. The single was never released in North America or Asia. The single release is notable for its B-sides, which include the album versions of “Dirty Diana” and “Beat It”, two songs which also include guest appearances by rock guitarists (Steve Stevens and Eddie Van Halen, respectively). American Idol Finalist Allison Iraheta performed the song during Michael Jackson Week in Season 8, 2009.

In this article Enormous growth of big and small towns in India is causing pains to its citizens and governments alike. While it is important to achieve economic growth for prosperity of its members, adverse effects of improperly managed growth is posing serious challenges of all kinds. This article discusses few policy changes that are likely to have significant positive impact on overall quality of infrastructure in India. Ideas for change1. Standard town model2. Special purpose zones for efficient infrastructure3. Plan by government, execution by private entities4. One agency responsible for all public works5. Minimum floor space index   Standard town model One idea is to conceptualize a standard town model across the nation. We can simply build a drawing for a town of specific size (say 3km x 3km) and use that as a template to create multiple towns across the nation. Advantage of this approach is that a master plan ensures that all towns have same basic lifestyle commitments. This also ensures that there is no undesired effect of over utilization or under utilization of the land resource in question. This has some drawbacks too. While flexibility for specific designs is compromised, it also raises the question of how to update these standards when new requirements arise. This can be addressed by allowing some space for expansion and future requirements in the plan.   Special purpose zones for efficient infrastructure It is well understood that any infrastructure built for specific usage is more efficient than a generic all purpose infrastructure. Latter seems to be chaotic while trying to address all needs at the same time. Former is efficient while imposing some additional costs on overall system. We can establish special purpose zones that allow a specific category of users only. Some such examples are listed below: (a) Residential zoneThis zone would allow only housing projects. A simple housing plan with all required utilities for residential usage must be available in this zone. These zones may have small roads, many one ways and good pedestrian paths, parks, etc. (b) Industrial zoneThis zone houses small and big industries. This zone must address requirements for heavy industrial transportation and constructions. (c) School zoneThis zone is restricted to schools and colleges only. It would serve as a large hub exclusively for academic activity. (d) Green zoneThis zone would host mini forests, parks, lakes, etc. It would act as a lung space to provide oxygen to rest of the zones. As the name suggests, this zone must be carbon free. (e) Commercial zoneThis zone would house small and big shops, malls and other commercial establishments. (f) Sports zoneThis zone would house many sporting complexes. Each zone must provide facility for all major sports along with facility for sports persons, trainers, etc. Each of these zones can be conceived like a national games village that can also host a major sports event. (g) Research zoneJust like sports, we also need an exclusive environment for research. This zone would provide a hub for research activities. (h) Government zoneGovernment establishments are huge and often occupy large spaces in various places. This zone can consolidate all government establishments and provide a secure infrastructure. (i) Hospital zoneResidential zones must house preventive and normal health clinics within it. Hospital zone could house large hospitals for special care. (j) Entertainment zoneThis zone can house all entertainment houses.   Plan by government, execution by private entities One of the major concerns of recent growth is that it is not managed for efficiency. In many cases, this is caused by private parties planning infrastructure in small pockets of the city. While these entities do plan an individual infrastructure very well, they may not have incentive to address needs of the large community around them. Here we can evaluate whether government should still continue to plan infrastructure (as it did in the past), but allow private parties to execute those projects. When a government plans for infrastructure, larger community issues can be addressed. For example, a major office complex builder may not build a fly over to de-congest traffic flow from the complex since he does not have the right incentive to do so. If the plans were drawn from a public entity, this would have been a major requirement in the plan.   One agency responsible for all public works This concept may sound like a counterproductive idea as it is against specialization. However, one just needs to visit work done by different entities in India to get a grasp of the problem. Issue here is not just accountability, which exists in any case, but also about transactional data sharing and comprehensive planning. This is a challenge for anyone dealing with multiple public entities. Here the suggestion is to define one entity that manages all public works in a specific zone. This way, entity can be trusted with greater accountability. Since entity is small, it can engage local citizens actively for all critical decisions. This would help citizens to not only participate in the decision making process, but also demand a better service.   Minimum floor space index Land is a natural resource that needs special attention. Just like any other natural resource, it is limited in supply and hence demands better efficiency in its usage. Land usage is often erratic and inefficient in India. There is still the concept of independent villas that take away precious land to house just single, often small, families. This inefficient usage leads to conversion of fertile agriculture land into concrete pockets which then results in deforestation for replenishing lost agriculture land. This vicious chain has resulted in heavy loss of green resource. In combination with earlier suggestion of special purpose zones, we should also aim at increasing overall land utilization. One way to do this is to address the issue using floor space index. We can setup norms so that for each land usage, we could define a minimum floor space index and utilization ratios.   Conclusion This article just touches upon few ideas to improve quality of infrastructure in India. It must be read with a clear understanding of other constraints on resources. Hope this article serves to initiate a healthy debate for a better future.

presentation of my Information Product project in my Statistical Process Control class. the class: this class was Statistical Process Control (SPC) / Total Quality Management (TQM). as one of the pioneering industrial engineers (IE), WE Deming applied the rigid SPC methodologies to manufacturing processes that developed into a tool applicable to any facet of business. the application has evolved into the moniker “six sigma.” this content of this class was the various techniques utilized in six sigma analysis. the text was the standard by Chambers and Wheeler. the assignment: the assignment was to “use the TDQM Improvement Methodology to perform an information quality (IQ) analysis on the information product of your choice and to devise an action plan for improvement.” the program: the master’s of information quality program at the university of arkansas at little rock is homed in the information technology department. its focus, basically, is to apply industrial engineering methodology to information. ie’s have traditionally applied their knowledge to organizational processes in order to maximize efficiency. this traditionally takes place in a setting where a process is repeated on a very large scale –like a manufacturing plant. information quality, though, is more focused on the metaphysical applications of IE principles. where ies are concerned with manufacturing, say, a refrigerator, IQ is concerned with manufacturing information. organizations use information to make …