CASE STUDY - RLPTechnologies Fuels Better Data Quality through Real Time Services
Commentary by Daniel Teachey, Director of Corporate Communications, DataFlux Corporation
The Business
RLPTechnologies is a subsidiary of R.L. Polk & Co., a leading provider of automotive information and marketing solutions. RLPTechnologies specializes in building industry-leading data solutions that serve as the foundation for focused, in-depth research and analysis across multiple industries—enabling these tools and applications to “mine” intelligence from the data.
The Challenge
R.L. Polk has set the standard for automotive vehicle and consumer data for many years, continually improving its data management methods along the way. But Polk needed to move beyond incremental improvements and develop a new, innovative approach that would greatly enhance Polk’s existing core foundational data warehouse.
As a result, RLPTechnologies was asked to initiate a reengineering effort to implement breakthrough technologies that would collect, standardize, and enhance data from disparate sources, and compile them into a “single source of the truth” for distribution to analytical and operational applications. The project led to the development of the Enterprise Information Factory (EIF) as a comprehensive, integrated application for enterprise information management. As a key part of the reengineering initiative, RLPTechnologies examined several data quality vendors to validate the interoperability of the solution within their target architecture—and assess the performance of these products when managing data with even the most complex business requirements.
RLPTechnologies was asked to ...collect, standardize, and enhancedata from disparate sources, andcompile them into a “single sourceof the truth.”
The DataFlux Solution
RLPTechnologies selected DataFlux dfPower Studio to analyze, improve, and control data quality within the Enterprise Information Factory that was developed to address R.L. Polk’s data requirements. At the outset of the project, data profiling provided an in-depth data discovery phase to catch data quality issues as soon as possible in the data’s lifecycle.
The DataFlux tools used to perform name-and-address standardization included a business rules builder and the Quality Knowledge Base (QKB) from DataFlux’s dfPower Studio. These elements gave Polk the flexibility to create custom rules that would easily integrate with all future releases of the DataFlux software.
The DataFlux Integration Server allowed RLPTechnologies to expose business rules for data quality via a service-oriented architecture (SOA), creating a real-time processing architecture to ensure that data entering RLPTechnologies’ solution met Polk corporate standards for data integrity. Once completed, the project encapsulated decades of unique and complex business rules that parse and standardize name and address data from vehicle title and vehicle registration records.
“DataFlux’s powerful data quality engine provided us with all the feedback necessary for our Enterprise Information Factory to evaluate rules, measure thresholds, and adjust for violations,” said Joe Lafeir, vice president of product development for RLPTechnologies. “DataFlux’s architecture and flexibility provided a means to tailor the name-and-address standardization solution with the complex set of business rules that we needed to move from the legacy mainframe environment.”
The Results
Thanks to DataFlux’s data quality integration technology, RLPTechnologies has a more consistent, accurate, and reliable foundation of data. The reengineering project served as an incubator for RLPTechnologies to offer Polk’s innovative software solution commercially, allowing others to benefit from higher- quality data.
With the help of DataFlux, RLPTechnologies created an engine that enhances the timeliness, accuracy, and quality of foundational data for Polk’s analytical and operational applications. Polk’s applications enable the automotive industry to analyze the market to make critical decisions about their businesses, communicate more effectively with prospects and customers, and evaluate the effectiveness of their programs.
“DataFlux provided us with excellent support throughout the entire process,” said Lafeir. “The technical support and the online customer portal kept us updated about technology advances that we could embrace. We engaged DataFlux’s professional services early in the project, and they provided deep content knowledge to help get the project off the ground.”
This article originally appeared in the issue of .