From the Executive Director

Linking the knowledge of today with the power of tomorrow

Newsletter www.eccma.org Inside this issue:

ISO 8000 MDQM

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Call for Presentations

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Single Classification System

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Recap of SC 5 Meeting

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Recap of SC 4 Meeting

5

Data Quality Summit

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Upcoming Newsletter

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KEY DATES: Conferences  July 13 - 15, 2011 The MIT Information Quality Industry Symposium Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts  October 25-27, 2011 ECCMA 12th Annual Data Quality Solutions Summit The Chateau Resort Tannersville, Pennsylvania

Meetings  July 19, 2011 eOTD Implementers Meeting Conference Call

Workshops  October 25, 2011 ISO 8000 Data Quality Workshop The Chateau Resort Tannersville, Pennsylvania

From the Executive Director With over 11 million hits on Google and hardly a week without a conference on the subject somewhere in the world, I do not think there is any doubt that data quality has finally reached the tipping point. Of course some of the other search engine statistics are equally impressive with ECCMA racking up 53,000 hits on Google and ISO 8000 data quality coming in at a staggering 333,000 hits with ISO 22745 not far behind with 143,000 hits. The eOTD™ comes in at 1.5 million hits, but we are sharing the acronym with some serious competition including Enhanced Observed Time Difference, Execution of the Day, Eyes of the Dead and Eclipse of the Dragon to name a few! I believe we are seeing the beginnings of the separation of data from software and we are also seeing a second explosion in the number of applications just as we saw with the introduction of operating systems that created the initial separation between software and hardware. As companies are starting to look at data quality, they are beginning to understand the importance of data portability. This is a serious issue with the leading ERP applications and may be an indication that the sophistication of the users is growing faster than the ability or willingness of the larger software vendors to adapt their technology, if not their pricing models. The connection between a data dictionary, data requirements and data quality is slowly, but surely catching on with an increasing demand for those who know how to define, measure and resolve practical data quality issues. This event should put a premium on the ECCMA certified ISO 8000 Master Data Quality Managers. The recognition of data in its own right is clearly driving demand for data portability and data quality, but also a growing recognition of the importance of data provenance, the ability to track the source of the data. (Continued on page 2)

June 2011– ECCMA Newsletter

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Linking the knowledge of today with the power of tomorrow (Continued from page 1)

Just as the eOTD and the eDRR™ are critical to data quality, eGOR™ is set to play a critical role in tracking the source of data. The issue is public domain identifiers backed by a standard data model and a public resolution service; this is ECCMA’s primary mission, a mission that is growing in value and that is deserving of our support. Sheron and his staff have been doing an amazing job building the registries, the servers and the web services interfaces; they are to be congratulated for their exemplary work. Krysten has been working to enlarge the membership, but she needs your support. You can help her by identifying potential members and encouraging them to join. Melissa, as our Administrative Director, is doing a wonderful job of conducting the small and dedicated orchestra of the ECCMA staff and volunteers, keeping us on the same sheet of music and playing in tune. We can all help Melissa by contributing articles to our newsletter and participating in the annual ECCMA conference, either by presenting or by attending. The annual conference is our opportunity to get together once a year to share our experience and to renew our friendships. This year will be special as Melissa has chosen a venue which will allow us to work together in a unique environment in the Poconos Mountains, where we can resolve outstanding technical issues and plan our next priorities. You can sign up now for the conference from the ECCMA web page. I hope to see most of the ECCMA members there; as there are new companies and people I would be interested in meeting and old friends and colleagues I would love to catch up with. Respectfully submitted,

Peter R. Benson, ECCMA Executive Director

Congratulations Melissa!! We'd like to congratulate former Melissa Scheib on her marriage to Paul Hildebrand. They were married on May 7, 2011 in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. As most of you know, Melissa has been a part of ECCMA for over 5 years and we'd like to wish her all the best in her future endeavors.


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The Pitfalls of Standardizing on a Single Classification System By: Tim Thomas, CEO of PARTsolutions LLC There are several classification systems out there that describe particular taxonomies. In fact, classification systems are adopted in specific regions of the world. In the engineering e-commerce environment, enterprise data management depends heavily on integrating product information into diverse technical documentation. For example, we often need to centralize multi-vendor product descriptions into a single e-catalog. The number of transactions, the amount of data and the time required, have combined to make it necessary for global Products and Services Categorization Standards (PSCS). In the U.S., the two most common to system design engineers are eClass classification and UNSPSC coding – both of which use a standardized vocabulary to tag data sets, categorized using a four tier classification hierarchy. The language used in PSCS can be broad and non-detailed, as with the NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) or very detailed communicative language like that of the eClass classification. Offering a more neutral taxonomy, UNSPSC coding falls somewhere between these two classifications, while it accounts for classes of products and services, it doesn’t offer descriptions. There’s also, of course, the eOTD™, which was developed to allow ECCMA members to improve the quality of their Master Data and their descriptions. It serves as a common mapping table between classifications. The dictionary includes classes (also known as item names or noun qualifiers) and properties (also known as attributes or characteristics), as well as, units of measure, currencies and controlled values (days of the week for example). The eOTD collects terminology from many standards and industry consortia, which results in a fair amount of duplication. So what does all this get us? If it was a perfect world and you were starting the process from scratch, the classification process would be pretty straightforward. But, as we all know, the world isn’t perfect and the classification of existing “jungles” of parts/and or products can prove difficult, and often, the value has a point of diminishing return. Take the simple case of classification in the home. More specifically, let’s visualize the kitchen. Open the drawer that holds your forks, knives and spoons and I bet it looks quite organized. In my house, there is a drawer that contains spatulas of different shapes and materials (steel, plastic, flat, bent), the potato masher (mesh type and round wire type), the manual can opener, amongst all the barbeque tools, which can’t fit in any other drawer. That drawer pretty much describes the “General” category of a Classification system. So how does an Engineer find such parts/products when needed in order to find and reuse an existing design, located in the “General” category? Combining classification and other means like: attribute searching, geometric volume searching, and a new means on the scene called “topology” searching, can save the day. Engineers have longed for the day to be able to find something in an existing database like an L bracket, the Stainless Steel variety, with a 4 pattern .2581 DIA clearance hole, on a 2 inch diameter bolt circle. How does an Engineer find that using traditional classification systems? Sure, if a classification exists, use it. However, budget constraints generally prevent engineers from being able to classify such a part without a significant premium. Start by rationalizing your current supply chain and your standard parts in use. Once you determine how big the pile of parts is, discuss ways to classify and properly attribute them in a way that forces design reuse. In addition, look for products that can help you geometrically fingerprint the inventory, adding another search for reuse capability. Again, evaluate the approach you are taking with any classification system before you invest good money after bad. Research tools and technology that can make the whole find and reuse experience a good one. Know this: a happy and efficient engineer is a successful engineer. June 2011– ECCMA Newsletter

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Recap of the ISO TC 184 / SC 5 Meeting Hosted by ECCMA ISO TC 184/ SC 5, "Interoperability, integration, and architectures for enterprise systems and automation applications,” held its annual meeting in May of 2011 in North Redington Beach, Florida. ECCMA, in its new role as Secretariat of SC 5, along with the U.S. Technical advisory group (TAG), hosted the annual meeting where delegates from China, Germany, Israel, Japan, the United States and ISO central office attended. As SC 5 is a sub-committee of TC 184, "Automation systems and integration," it plays a key role in developing standards for addressing interoperability of manufacturing automation systems within and throughout the manufacturing enterprise. View from the deck of the DoubleTree Resort.

During this meeting, topics addressed by the subcommittee and its working groups included KPI's (key process indicators) for manufacturing, Energy efficiency in manufacturing systems, software capability profiling and cataloging, information exchange for diagnostics and production information, emerging work in digital factory standardization, object process modeling, and enterprisecontrol modeling activities.

Meeting attendees enjoyed a delicious dinner, sponsored by Rockwell Automation, at the Salt Rock Grill in Indian Rocks, Florida.

For more information or if you are interested in joining the U.S. TAG, please send an email to: [email protected] Meeting room where SC 5 meetings were held throughout the week. The nice view made meetings a little more relaxing.


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Recap of the ISO TC 184 / SC 4 Meeting Hosted by ECCMA

Portland is home to the Lan Su Chinese Garden and is one of Portland’s greatest treasures.

This year’s 60th ISO TC 184 / SC 4 meeting was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Convention Center in Downtown Portland, Oregon in May of 2011 and was a great success. ECCMA greatly enjoys hosting this event every year and interacting with all the attendees. This meeting proves to be more and more significant every year. With a few exciting events to break up the week, over 50 attendees enjoyed their visit to Portland and their interaction with others from around the world.

ISO TC 184/SC 4 is a committee of the International Organization of Standards responsible for the development of international standards Industrial Data. SC 4 is developing standards which provide capabilities to describe and manage industrial product data throughout the life of the product. These standards play a key role in the neutral exchange of data between competing applications, as well as, the long term preservation of information, both critical to the protection of intellectual property, an increasingly important business asset.

Attendees enjoyed learning how to play craps during the Social Even Dinner. They also enjoyed playing black jack at another table. Unfortunately, there was only “fake” coins to play with.


The SC 4 Chair, Howard Mason, had the pleasure of spending his birthday with the rest of the attendees.

Team Casino were the coaches of the evening; each attendee exchanged a player card for their first set of chips.

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Recap of Industry Day May 25, 2011 in Portland, Oregon The ISO TC 184 / SC 4 committee held its 61st Plenary Meeting at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Portland, Oregon in May of 2011. In conjunction with the official ISO meeting, the committee hosted Industry Day on Wednesday, May 25th. ISO TC 184 / SC 4 is responsible for the development of international standards for data quality and for the exchange of quality data. Attendants from Industry Day learned from the experts how to specify your data requirements in government, manufacturing, healthcare or finance, and how to get the data you need to deliver quality products or services. Speakers also demonstrated how to use standards for data quality to reduce cost, reduce risk and improve financial reporting.

Industry Day Speakers (from left to right): Stacie Hall, Intel, Linda Kresl; Industry Day Chair; Mary Klein, Intel; Aparna Vani, Yahoo!; Gerald Radack, PiLog USA, Inc.; John Salazar, Intellego Inc.; Jeff Pettit, One Truth Enterprise LLC.

Presentations came from a variety of different companies: Intel, Yahoo!, Intellego, BPA, PiLog USA and One Truth Enterprises. Industry Day’s keynote presenter was Bill Inmon, the Father of Data Warehousing and the founder of Forest Rim Technology.

Keynote Speaker, Bill Inmon during his presentation,

Textual ETL – Opening up New Worlds of Opportunity.

To view presentations from

Industry Day on May 25th in Portland, Oregon, please visit the following site: http://www.sc4-if.enea.it/Layout/sc4/index.asp June 2011– ECCMA Newsletter

Speaker, Valerie Wilkie, of BPA during her presentation,

Data Stewardship Approach for Customer Support Service.

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12th Annual

Data Quality Solutions Summit ISO 8000 Data Quality Standard The Chateau Resort & Conference Center October 25 – October 27, 2011

Tannersville, Pennsylvania This year’s 12th Annual Data Quality Solutions Summit will be held October 25th to 27th, 2011 in Tannersville, Pennsylvania at the Chateau Resort and Conference Center. This unique learning experience will be facilitated by several highly skilled experts. The summit will include the following topics: 

Data Governance

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Managing ISO 8000 Portable Data

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ISO 8000 Measuring Quality Data

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Metadata Governance

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Data Portability

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Importance of Authoritative Data

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Long Term Data Retention

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Defining Data Requirements

Prior to the summit there will be an ISO 8000-110 Master Data Quality Manager and Quality Master Data Provider Certification Workshop on Tuesday, October 25th from 9 AM to 4 PM. The workshop will cover: 

NATO codification system as the foundation for the  eOTD™, ISO 22745 and ISO 8000 

Developing rules for descriptions

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Creating a metadata registry

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Developing data requirement statements

Create an eOTD-q-xml request for characteristic or reference data

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Measuring data quality

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Create on eOTD-r-xml reply to a request for data

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Researching and requesting missing data Participants have the opportunity to register and receive an ISO 8000 certificate (separate registration is required).

Develop an eOTD-i-xml Identification Guide

ECCMA’s 2011 Data Quality Symposium

Call for Presentations This conference program is designed for data managers, cataloguers and information officers with a level of technical knowledge and experience.

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 26TH & THURSDAY OCTOBER 27TH PRESENTATIONS Best practice in managing data quality: the presenters will provide practical insights into data governance, resolving the related issues of data portability and long term data retention, data provenance, metadata governance and measuring quality data. Each presentation will be a thirty minutes followed by four fifteen minute round table discussions.

August 31 - Abstract, speaker bio and photo must be sent to ECCMA. October 17 - Presentation must be sent to ECCMA. For more information please contact us at: [email protected] June 2011– ECCMA Newsletter

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Who’s Who?

Welcome New Members

Lockheed Martin To learn more visit www.lockheedmartin.com.

Thiess Pty. Ltd. To learn more visit www.thiess.com.au.

To view all current ECCMA members please visit www.eccma.org/Member_Directory/Directory_index.php.

Renewed Members

DataFlux DataFlux enables business agility and IT efficiency by providing innovative data management technology and services that transform data into a strategic asset, helping you reduce costs, optimize revenue and mitigate risks. A


wholly owned subsidiary of SAS, DataFlux helps organizations manage critical aspects of data through unified technologies and expertise designed to improve the quality of data on customers, products, materials, assets and

other information assets. To learn more visit www.dataflux.com.

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Who’s Who?

Renewed Members

FRESH International Fresh is a specialist software research and development company, dedicated to automatic data standardization inside the enterprise systems of leading

companies and goverments globally. To learn more visit www.freshinternational.com.

PARTsolutions PARTsolutions® LLC is a leading provider of PLM solutions for next generation 3D part catalog management and hosting, delivering solutions since 1992. For large manufacturers, the PARTsolutions product suite provides centralized 3D standard part catalogs making it easy for global design teams to find, reuse, and control standard and proprietary 3D parts. Visit www.partsolutions.com to download

the 3D Part Catalog Management white paper from CIMdata, titled “A PLM Strategy to Reduce Direct Material Costs.” For component manufacturers, the PARTsolutions product suite provides web hosting of 3D part catalogs to increase lead generation, and to ensure that components get “designed in” to OEM products. The PARTsolutions CAD-Native advantage provides support of over 85 native

and neutral CAD and graphics formats to meet the needs of the multi-CAD supply chain. The PARTsolutions product suite maximizes support of reuse and standardization initiatives to deliver measurable business growth through maximizing standard part reuse to get products to market faster with reduced cost. To learn more visit www.partsolutions.com.

WESCO Distribution Inc. WESCO International, Inc. (NYSE: WCC), a publicly traded Fortune 500 company headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a leading provider of electrical, industrial, and communications maintenance, repair and operating (“MRO”) and original equipment manufacturers (“OEM”) products, construction materials, and advanced supply chain management and logistics June 2011– ECCMA Newsletter

services. 2010 annual sales were approximately $5.1 billion. The Company employs approximately 6,800 people, maintains relationships with over 17,000 suppliers, and serves over 100,000 customers worldwide. Customers include industrial and commercial businesses, contractors, governmental agencies, institutions, telecommunications providers and utilities.

WESCO operates seven fully automated distribution centers and over 400 full-service branches in North America and international markets, providing a local presence for customers and a global network to serve multi -location businesses and multi-national corporations. To learn more visit www.wesco.com.

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About ECCMA Executive Director Peter Benson [email protected] Administrative Director Melissa Scheib Hildebrand [email protected] Membership Administrator Krysten Wolf [email protected] President ECCMA India Sheron Koshy [email protected] Chief Technical Officer

Formed in April 1999; the Electronic Commerce Code Management Association has brought together thousands of experts from around the world and provides them a means of working together in the fair, open and extremely fast environment of the Internet to build and maintain the global, open standard dictionaries that are used to unambiguously label information. The existence of these dictionaries of labels allows information to be passed from one computer system to another without losing meaning. ECCMA 2980 Linden St., Ste. E2 Bethlehem, PA 18017 Tel: +1 610 861-5990 Fax: +1 610 625-4657 www.eccma.org

Dr. Gerald Radack [email protected] Board of Directors Larry Barth, Vermont Energy Investment Corp. Peter Benson, ECCMA George Bond, UKNCB Don Brown, PartNET Chris Haydon, Quadrem Donald Hillman, Lehigh University Sheron Koshy, ECCMA India Pieter Strydom, PiLog

Upcoming Newsletter Issue

Bern Werner, Salar Inc.

Online Store ISO 8000-110:2008 standard is available for purchase at ANSI eStandards Store! To purchase visit http://webstore.ansi.org and enter ISO/TS 8000-110:2008 in the search tool bar under

document number. June 2011– ECCMA Newsletter

If you are a member of ECCMA in good standing, we invite you to submit articles for our viewers to read. It can be anything in the data quality industry, cataloging projects or interesting news and tips you’d like to share with our fellow members and audience. If you are interested please send an email to [email protected]. Thank You!

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