Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML
Based on many years of experience we give you support in the conception and implementation of modern data integration solutions
Nowadays, the regular optimization of business processes is an important success factor for modern companies. These optimizations are in many cases based of the information available in the company in the form of data. The company data is often distributed and available in different formats and systems such as relational databases, ERP systems or proprietary systems.
For an efficient process management it is often necessary to link, compare, or exchange this data with each other. Several systems or information sources need to be used by the administrator during this processing. This process is both laborious and error-prone since any consistency checks are carried out exclusively by the person responsible.
Data integration is the consistent, complete, and efficient consolidation of data from different sources to a structured amount of information with the target to enable an effective interpretation of this data.
The process of data integration is associated with many challenges:
- How exactly should the information from the different systems be linked to a consistent form?
- What should a collective data model look like and which technology should be used?
- Which interfaces are already existing and which ones need to be created?
- How should contradictory data be handled?
- How are inconsistencies in the integrated datasets cleaned up?