Single source of truth - Codification System

The Codification System is the one source of truth for code management. Its purpose is to classify and identify any entity relevant to a company.

What

Maintaining a single source of truth is a business practice to centralize information in only one place.

Why

The main reason for maintaining one source of truth is standardization. A centralized process brings efficiency and effectiveness to code maintenance. Without a single source of truth, data sets exist in siloes and each department operates as a black box.

Risks

What are the risks of not using a single source of truth?

Outdated information: in some subsystems, information could take longer to be updated, because different processes are in place to maintain certain information.
Forgotten information: other subsystems are not well maintained as others or they are not even maintained at all. Blocks of information can be forgotten for a long time. In the worst case, those forgotten subsystems would create inconsistencies with other databases.
Inconsistent information: when subsystems are not synchronized properly, different codes could refer to the same entities. Even worst is when two systems generate the same code but they refer to different entities.

Benefits

The first benefit of a centralized codification system as a single source of truth is that all the risks mentioned previously are mitigated or canceled.

Among many benefits, it is worth mentioning:

Effectiveness and efficiency: resources are centralized, consequently increasing quality and reducing costs.
Real-time and near-time: all the information is immediately propagated to any subsystem based on the required performances.
Quality: codes are fitting their purpose as never before, based on agreed-upon rules.
Transparency: codification rules are visible to anyone involved in the codification process.
Comparison: code designs are maintained in a central place which facilitates comparison and understanding of certain decisions.
Codification operations: operative tasks are standardized.
Codification strategy: strategic decisions are facilitated by a consolidated overview of all codes and designs. Implementing a single source of truth enables business leaders to make data-driven decisions based on the data from the business as a whole.