Abstract
M.Comm.
In manufacturing companies where raw material is transformed into an endproduct,
data pertaining to that transformation process are transported from the
physical machine (workstation) to a central database and visa versa. To ensure
a successful end-product creation, the company needs to ensure that the data
being transported is correct, accurate and trustworthy at all times. As unreliable
data seems to be a general problem for large manufacturing companies an
investigation was launched to establish what integrity problems are being
experienced and possible solutions to these problems in manufacturing
companies such as Columbus Stainless Steel. On completion of the
investigation it was found that the main causes for late deliveries and data fixes
being performed was that the data being transmitted at the source was not
always the same data received at the destination, hence a lack of data integrity
during data transmission was identified. As it was decided to reduce or eliminate
the integrity causes rather than correcting the incorrect results the data
transportation process was analyzed.
During the analysis the main causes for data integrity problems (errors) were
identified. In the environment being investigated, data strings (messages) were
created at the workstation and then transported via the use of a transporter
(protocol) over an established network to the destination database. The more
complex the contents of the message (data string), the more advanced features
were needed within the functionality of the protocol to ensure the accurate and
correct transmission and processing. Once the main causes for these data
integrity errors were identified the investigation was broadened to incorporate the
search for various protocols with the ability to reduce or eliminate the causes
identified previously.