Data Index Rationalisation

As a result of company mergers, we were engaged to merge some 30 separate commercial and technical indexes into a single clean and standardised entity

Background

Our client had grown through mergers and acquisitions, each additional 'unit' arriving with several of its own technical and commercial data indexes.
We were engaged to merge some 30 separate indexes into a single entity, and to identify duplicate data for potential destruction. In addition we were asked to make the index available to all users.
Venture designed and built a database into which the disparate legacy databases were loaded. Following the execution of extensive matching and validation routines, a single, clean and standardised data index was produced.

Outcome

A single index of 800,000 records was made available to the business. This was web enabled, allowing data to be accessed by all users. In addition the solution allowed:

• Data storage location and company to be transparent to the user. Each order is split automatically and the appropriate data request - fax or e-mail, formatted for the particular company
• Archivists to 'hide' records for items that are permanently withdrawn e.g. when an asset is sold
• Administrators to monitor the borrowing history of an item and therefore determine active and hence important data to the business