Founded in 1999 as a not-for-profit membership association, ECCMA is an international association of industry and government master data managers working together to increase the quality and lower the cost of managing descriptions of individuals, organizations, goods and services through developing and promoting International Standards for Master Data Quality.
ECCMA members include public and private sector buyers, suppliers and their application or service providers. On behalf of its members the association manages an ontology consisting of an open public registry of concepts the eOTD (ECCMA Open Technical Dictionary), a shared registry of data requirements the eDRR (ECCMA Data Requirement Registry) and a collection of classifications the eCLR (ECCMA Classification Registry) as well as an open public registry of organizations eGOR (ECCMA Global Organization Registry). The ECCMA Registries are based on public domain identifiers used to create portable data, data that is independent of any specific software application.
ECCMA members create their own subset of the ECCMA ontology and use this to create, manage and enforce their own corporate business language and their own corporate ontology mapped through the eOTD to that of other members.
The mission of the association is to provide its members with the standards and the registries necessary to measure and improve the quality of their master data.
Companies and individuals join ECCMA in order to have access to information and technical support that helps them measure and improve the quality of their master data. While the ECCMA Open Technical Dictionary (eOTD) is a public resource with unrestricted access, membership is required to access the shared ECCMA Data Requirements Registry (eDRR) which contains the class-property relationships (templates) used in cataloging and to measure data quality under ISO 8000. Members also have access to technical support provided by a team of experts in master data quality and benefit from a wide range of discounts on events, training and certification.
Associate Membership ($350); this membership is designed for those individuals or companies that are looking for basic support in cataloging or the creation and implementation of a corporate business language based on the eOTD.
Full Membership ($5,000); this membership is designed for those companies looking for a higher level of support for larger cataloging projects or looking to create or maintain a multilingual ontology.
Chartered Membership ($50,000); this membership is designed for those companies looking to integrate the ECCMA registries into their applications or services. This is the highest level of ECCMA membership and it includes implementation and integration support. Through their integration with the ECCMA registries Chartered members can add concepts and terminology directly to the eOTD as well as register data requirements and obtain organization identifiers from the ECCMA organization registry in real time.
To view the detailed list of benefits, click
here.
Yes, you can request that your company logo be included in the Member Directory along with a brief company description and contact details. If you are a Charter member and an integration partner you can request that your logo be added to the ECCMA home page.
The ECCMA Open Technical Dictionary (eOTD) is an open public registry of terminology from international and national standards as well as from industry associations. It resembles any other dictionary with the addition of public domain concept and terminology identifiers. For example if you look up the term "Cap" in a dictionary you will see that there are several different meanings of the word, these are concepts for example the cap you wear on your head, a bottle cap or an explosive cap . The eOTD gives each concept a different identifier so when you are talking about a "cap" everyone knows what concept you are talking about.
The eOTD also provides a public registry of localizations, these are not literal translations of a term or a definition but rather the terms and definitions used to describe the concept in a language as spoken in a specific region (French as spoken in France or French as spoken in Canada for example).
Finally the eOTD provides a public registry of concept mappings, this is very important as it allows different groups to maintain their own terminology while mapping to the terminology used by other groups. An example of this is a mapping between the concept of "interior diameter" and "bore", these terms are used in different industries but mean the same thing, the eOTD links the two concepts with the permission of the controllers of the two entries in the eOTD, this is called a public mapping.
In practice the eOTD identifiers are used to encode data turning it into unambiguous, language independent, portable data. To decode the identifiers you simply use the eOTD and look up the terminology associated with the identifier.
The eOTD conforms to ISO 22745 an international standard that defines the structure and administration of an open technical dictionary. The eOTD is available free to the general public through a web services interface. There is no license required to use the eOTD. The eOTD concept identifiers are in the public domain, they may be used or distributed without license and can be safely embedded in data without the risk of creating a joint copyright.
The eOTD is open to the public but it is a very large file containing over 2.9 million concepts so it is not practical to manage it as a spreadsheet or with most databases. The best way to access the eOTD is through a searcher that uses web services or to implement the ECCMA published web services interface. If you are a member of ECCMA you will be provided with a username and password, which will give you access to the Member Login area and there you will find details of how you can obtain the downloads that you may need.
8.
Are Data Requirements specific to an organization?
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Yes, data requirements, identification guides or cataloging templates are specific to an organization and designed for a specific purpose. ECCMA encourages the registration of data requirements in the eDRR for three purposes. The first is so that ECCMA members may share data requirements as templates to build their own. The second is that ECCMA uses the eDRR to rank the use of concepts in the eOTD, this helps other ECCMA members identify the most commonly used concepts and this encourages harmonization. Finally the eDRR is an essential part of Cataloging at Source. This is a process where a data requestor (typically a buyer) can send a request for data to a data provider (typically a supplier).
The UNSPSC was designed as a standard procurement classification. It is very similar to a chart of accounts used to group like items together for analyzing expenditure. The original goal of the UNSPSC was to allow buyers to provide their suppliers with a standardized commodity code that they could add to the line items on their invoices so that when a buyer received the invoice it would be easy to analyze. Initially this worked very well as suppliers liked having a single simple "standard" commodity code they could use for all their customers. Technology has largely made the UNSPSC obsolete as both buyers and their suppliers have become more sophisticated. Suppliers have realized that better visibility comes from better descriptions and buyers have realized that in order to manage their supply chain they need better descriptions of what they are buying. Classifications like the UNSPSC, the UNCCS, the NCS or the CPV still serve an important purpose for spend analysis but typically they are assigned automatically by the buyer and they are asking their suppliers for better quality and preferably standardized descriptions.
If you cannot find a suitable concept amongst the 2.9 million concepts that are already in the eOTD, then it may be time to join the association so we can help you find one that matches your needs or request that a new concept be added. We typically research existing concept definitions published in one of the many international or national standards or by an industry association, if we find it we add it to the eOTD or as a last resort we will develop a new concept for you. Guidelines for developing concept terms and definitions can be found in ISO 22745-11.
Identification is about assigning a reference number that can be used to identify an item or a group of items. There are two common levels of identification, the first identifies a unique item such as a serial number of a computer or a vehicle identification number (VIN) for a car (the license plate number actually identifies the owner of the vehicle), the second identifies a group of items such as a part number, a batch number or model number. While serial numbers are used for asset tracking, part numbers are used for ordering. For more details please see the white paper Supply Chain Management by the Numbers.
A description consists of describing something so that it can be distinguished from or grouped with others through its form or function. Descriptions can be free form or structured. The quality of a description is measured by the degree to which it fulfills its function - search for example. Structured descriptions are typically made up from property value pairs that describe the characteristics of an item (individual, organization, location, or service). The key to a good description is ensuring that the concepts used in a description (properties, units of measure, enumerated values) are explicitly labeled; this is a requirement of ISO 8000 quality data.
A classification is a hierarchy used to group items that share similar characteristics. A classification typically has many levels and can be compared to a tree that starts with a trunk which branches out to its leaves. The leaves are the lowest level of the classification and the trunk is the highest, sometimes you hear programmers talking about the leaf node, this just means the lowest level of data. A company's chart of accounts is a form of classification. By their very nature, classifications are orders that serve a specific purpose and you cannot typically use a classification designed for one purpose to serve another. Classifications may also cover specific domains and exclude others. An example of a classification is the Linnaeus classification that divided everything into three kingdoms, animal, vegetable and mineral (given that his work was first published in 1753 he can be excused for leaving out data).
ISO 22745 is a standard that defines open technical dictionaries and their application to cataloging. The goal is to create a framework that allows two parties to exchange master data (vendor, material, service, Human Resources, etc.) without the risk of misunderstanding each other. Furthermore, it is important that the information be capable of being used in any computer application (neutral exchange), easily translated and it must stand the test of time (long term data retention).
To do this ECCMA created
a central dictionary (the eOTD) which contains terms (words)
and definitions linked to a public domain concept identifier.
Many terms and definitions can be linked to the same concept
identifier reflecting different ways of describing the concept
by language, country and industry. The creators of catalog
data use the dictionary to encode the metadata (labels) they
have chosen to describe the item. For example instead of identifying
the part number as "AM23456" the manufacturer or supplier
would say 0161-1#02-027375 = "AM23456." The reason for this
is that while one supplier may use the label part number,
another may use SKU or product number or simply #. Using a
numeric label that is tied back to a definition allows the
person who encoded the data to point to the full meaning of
the label in a dictionary. The concept identifier must be
in the public domain or the encoded file becomes a "joint
work" belonging to both the person who created the data and
the owner of the identifier.
As most manufacturers and suppliers know, buyers want different information; this is the purpose of the data requirement. A Data Requirement is a cataloging template that can be used by a buyer to specify exactly what data they want using the eOTD concept identifiers. This is a great help to manufacturers and suppliers as the eOTD includes terminology not only from NATO, ISO and IEC but also from many other standards organizations and industry groups.
ISO 22745 explains the theory
of how the pieces fit together and also includes the specification
of the XML schemas that are the practical format used to exchange
data requirements and Catalog data. ISO 22745 also includes
the specification of how concept identifiers can be found
and resolved using standard on line services.
Actually industry does not need a harmonized open technical dictionary as it is unreasonable to expect everyone to agree to use a single terminology or a single language (this was apparently tried in the tower of Babel without great success). The eOTD provides a registry of terminology from many sources and a way to publish authoritative mappings so those that use the term "bore" and those that use the term "interior diameter" can agree to agree.
ECCMA is the manager of the eOTD, an open technical dictionary that bears its name. ECCMA controls the assignment of the public domain 0161 identifiers used in the eOTD but the eOTD itself can be freely distributed and may be available from many sites. The eOTD will always be available to the public but there is no guarantee that any one specific format will be supported. It is up to the members of ECCMA to select the best format for the distribution of the eOTD. The ECCMA Charter members that are integration partners typically maintain a mirror copy of the eOTD and the other ECCMA registries.
The ECCMA Data Requirements Registry (eDRR) formerly known as eIGR (ECCMA Identification Guide Registry)
Data Requirements are used to define the required characteristic needed to describe a class of items.
These are typically known as cataloging templates or identification guides but in reality a data entry form for example, on a website or a report are in fact data requirements and they can be expressed in eOTD-i-xml (ISO 22745-30) and registered in the eDRR. Meeting requirements for data is one of the fundamental clauses of ISO 8000 data quality. Without a data requirement against which you can test data you cannot determine the quality of the data. Data Requirements are also the starting point of Cataloging at Source (C@S), a faster, better and cheaper way to ask for missing data or to ask for the validation of existing data.
The eDRR is a shared resource built by ECCMA members to assist other ECCMA members in their data cleaning and data management projects. The eDRR is essentially a library of requirements and ECCMA members can register their data requirements in the library, check out an existing data requirement to use as a base for creating a new requirement or simply indicate that they are a user of a registered data requirement so as to be advised if the data requirement is marked as deprecated (nothing is ever deleted from an ECCMA registry).
ECCMA Identification Guide Registry(eIGR) has been renamed to ECCMA Data Requirements Registry (eDDR). Please see question "What is eDRR?".
ECCMA Classification Registry (eCLR).
ECCMA members can add terminology to the eOTD through participation in a content standardization council. The councils are also responsible for developing typical data requirements and typical classifications. Councils may include: Aerospace, Automotive, Oil and Gas, Mining, Steel, Utilities, Industrial Automation, Food processing, Defense, Plastics, Telecommunications, Transport, Health care, Chemical. A member may request to add a council and become chair.
ECCMA Global Organization Registry (eGOR)
eGOR is a standardized vendor master designed to assign globally unique public domain organization identifiers. eGOR is a shared resource to assist ECCMA members in their vendor data cleaning and data management projects.
To view eGOR visit http://www.eccma.org/eGOR/.
ECCMA Classification Registry
(eCLR)
These are cross mapped, industry specific, spend analysis
classifications developed by the Content Standardization Councils.
These classifications add a hierarchy to the eOTD class and
are designed to be better suited to specific industries that
standard spend analysis classifications.
ISO 8000 is the international standards for data quality.
The purpose of ISO 8000 is to make it easier to tell the difference between those companies and software application that can deliver what ISO 8000 defines as quality data and those that cannot.
The strength and power in ISO 8000 lies in the fact that the opinion of what is, and what is not, quality data, is based on international agreement. Industry experts from around the world have agreed that there are characteristics of data that can be used to define and measure its quality and these are described in ISO 8000.
The practical purpose of a standard or a specification is to provide a form of commercial shorthand. Claiming that something conforms to a standard is the same as claiming that something conforms to the clauses in the standard. For example when you ask how many USB ports a computer has, you are asking how many ports on the computer conform to the USB specification. In the same way, the purpose of ISO 8000 is to allow users to ask for ISO 8000 quality data and to be able to test if the data they received conforms to ISO 8000, if it does conform then it would be ISO 8000 quality data and if not, well let's just say "it would not be ISO 8000 quality data".
The roots of ISO 8000 are grounded in cataloging, the process of describing an item by its characteristics as opposed to its identifiers. Characteristic based descriptions make it possible to understand why things are the same or why they are different and if so to what degree are they the same or different. This is very important in all aspects of commercial and government activity and this capability depends on the quality of the data.
ISO 8000 comes in separate
parts the 100 series deals with Master Data; this is the data
that describes individuals, organizations, locations, good
and services. The 100 series describes the three fundamental
characteristics of quality as they are applied to data. The
first is that there must be a reference to a syntax, basically
the format of the data. The second is that the metadata, the
data labels, must be explicitly defined, no more cryptic data
labels. The final requirement is that the data must meet requirements.
This may sound obvious but many forget that the definition
of "quality" is meets requirements. For data to be considered
quality data it must meet the requirements for data. This
is really where the ECCMA data requirements registry (eDRR)
comes into play. When someone sends you data and claims it
is "quality data" it must be readable (syntax) and the data
must be correctly labeled (eOTD) but it must also meet requirements
and it is these requirements that are registered in the eDRR.
| a) |
|
So you will be recognized as an authority on ISO 8000
master data quality. |
| b) |
|
So you can speak with authority on how to use ISO 8000
to measure and solve data quality problems. |
| c) |
|
Your
customers are looking for certified ISO 8000 Master Data
Quality Managers to manage their data cleansing projects. |
| d) |
|
You
need to differentiate yourself from your competitors –
you know what it takes to create and maintain ISO 8000
quality master data. |
| e) |
|
Your
customers are looking for trading partners who know how
to deliver ISO 8000 quality master data and quality descriptions
of their goods and services. |
Data and information quality are now widely recognized problems in companies large and small from manufacturing and processing through finance and health care. Incomplete or duplicate records, poor quality descriptions and inaccurate information cause inefficient allocation and use of resources and are a drag on operations and profitability adding up to 20% to direct and indirect costs alike. Poor quality data is a barrier to effective marketing and the leading cause of transparencyissues that drive up the cost of regulatory compliance.
Quality data is not
a luxury it is an operational, regulatory and statutory requirement
The ECCMA ISO 8000-110:2009
certification program will certifies that you understand how
to use ISO 8000 in measuring data quality as well as in requesting
and responding to requests for quality master data.
The United States is a participating, or P-member, of ISO TC 184, as well its subcommittees. In order for the U.S. to participate in the ISO work, there must be an ANSI-accredited U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG). The TAGs provide the U.S. technical experts to the ISO committees and formulate the U.S. position on the ISO ballots and these are formally submitted by ANSI as the voting member body to ISO.
