[cwilkes]

Some of their issues were with the measurement system (English vs metric) and order of dimensions (length * width * height or width * length * height).

I can see a turk system where they show a picture of the product and ask if the unit of measurement looks correct (being 2.5x off is pretty easy to guess) and if the order looks correct. They might not get the width and the length correct but the height could probably be guessed. Course that can probably be done with computer vision.

So for $75k they could get it so at least the product would fit on the shelving units. That could easily pay for itself in a day. Products that failed these two simple tests should be looked at more closely for other issues.

[retroafroman]

True, but again, that assumes they have a picture of the data. If the product was sold online through target.com, a picture may exist somewhere. Otherwise, most company's item master data tables (that I've seen) don't include a picture. Also, they chose not to use data out of the old systems, because they wanted to avoid getting it out of the old and into the new system. This seems like it should've been the easier route but for whatever reason their legacy software probably made it much more difficult than needed.