NPV Content Services Process

Our content sourcing group has created a proprietary process through which customers are able to interact with our content management team to the level that the customer feels is appropriate. More specifically, tools and processes are in place to manage this collaboration between customer and the Content Factory through a scenario similar to this example:

• A thorough data audit is performed to gather metrics on overall condition of the data with results presented back in a working session to develop customer-specific rules for cleansing and producing content. Deliverables from the data audit include reports on duplicate and obsolete parts, pricing discrepancies between parts, description standardization analysis and classification analysis outlining any parts which NPV could not classify.
• In parallel with the data audit work is started to develop the schema. For commodities in which NPV has already developed template schemas, the initial schema is reviewed and tailored to a draft format using input from Site Assessment surveys performed by pre-sales and implementation services and any data dumps received from the customer. NPV has a standard Electronic Components schema developed through several years of interaction with purchasing and commodity managers which would serve as a baseline for developing a schema to match customers in the electronics industry.
• The schema is then reviewed with you, our customer and customized to your approval.
• The approved schema is used as the model for data cleansing and enriching by the content source group. At this time the content source group would reach out to suppliers and manufacturers for additional information to enrich the content and populate the required attributes. As the process of cleansing and enrichment moves forward, a continuous validation feedback loop is established with suppliers and manufacturers.
• Initial DB loads can be performed to allow customers to view the loaded content in the Staging database and provide approval to move ahead with content loading or make suggestions on changes to the schema.
• The changes are captured, implemented and re-submitted for approval to complete loading and publishing.

This scenario displays a moderately high level of customer interaction in the cleansing process. This can be trimmed back or increased based upon a customer's desire to be integrated into the process. NPV has a management structure and teams in place within the content source group who are dedicated solely to QA. Through standardizing our process, involving all necessary parties and structuring our content sourcing group around quality, we are able to ensure high-quality content is delivered back to our customers in the most cost efficient and effective manner.

Automation of the Normalization process is accomplished via internal proprietary tools, developed for our process. Tasks within the Normalization process include:

• Standardizing data values for normalized Unit of Measure
• Expanding abbreviations where necessary
• Standardizing data values to follow valid value rules for an attribute e.g. Material can hold only certain values
• Standardizing and checking for numeric values to fit a valid range e.g. Room Temperature should be within a range
• Standardizing manufacturer/supplier names to rationalize across a list
• Correcting spelling errors
• Standardizing data values to suit target system's data definition and load requirements.