Characterizing the Quality of Address Data

By David Loshin


And there are many references to operations or transformations performed on addresses, mostly with the intent of improving the quality of the address.

Curiously, there are a number of different terms used to refer to these different transformations: validation, verification, standardization, cleansing, correction. I am sure there are others. But what do all these things mean? And why are these different terms used if they mean the same thing?

The first step in exploring the answer to this question is reflecting back on the nature of deliverable addresses. When an item is sent to an addressed location, there are some core concepts that need to be right:

1) The item must be directed to a specific recipient party (either an individual or an organization).
2) The address must be a deliverable address.
3) The intended recipient must be associated with the deliverable address.

In addition, there are certain incentives provided to senders when the addresses are completely aligned with the Postal Standard, adding one more concept:

4) The delivery address must conform to the USPS standard.

These directives provide us with some material with which to work for differentiating the different terms used for postal data quality. More next week...