The Credit Clearing House Expert System

The Credit Clearing House (CCH) is a division of Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) Business Information Group's Business Credit Services. CCH functions as the arm of Business Credit Services' Product Marketing Group, dedicated to serving the risk management needs of the apparel industry by assigning credit ratings and dollar-specific credit limit recommendations. CCH has several thousand customers that use its services. It recommends a credit limit that the D&B subscriber can safely extend to a given client. An example customer of this service is an apparel wholesaler who receives an order from a retailer with which they are not familiar or an order with a high dollar amount that raises some credit uncertainty. The wholesaler would request an evaluation of the retailer and a maximum credit recommendation from CCH. CCH credit ratings have historically been based on the information found in D&B business information reports. The quality of the CCH service is dependent on three primary factors: (1) the ability of CCH analysts to apply consistent decisions to diverse business situations, (2) the ability to respond rapidly to customer requests, and (3) the ability to update ratings and recommendations with the most current data. To meet these criteria, CCH was required to maintain a process that