Normalisation aims at eliminating the anomalies in data.

The
process of normalisation involves three stages, each stage generat-
ing a table in normal form.

1. First normal form:

The first step in normalisation is putting all repeated fields in
separate files and assigning appropriate keys to them.

Taking the example of purchase order processing the

following data elements can be identified in a purchase
order:
Supplier_ ID

Supplier’s Name

Address

Purchase order number

Date

Terms of Payment

Shipping Terms

S. No.

Product Code

Description

Unit of Measurement

Quantity ordered
Amount

As detailed above, the ‘shipping terms’ are repeated for each S. No.
and there will be multiple of records for it in each purchase order.
In the first stage of normalisation, the repeated data elements are
placed in separate tables. Thus, we split the data elements into two
tables as shown below:

The key data elements are shown in capital letters. The table is now
in the first normal form (INF) because all repeated data elements
(fields) are in a separate table (Table 1.2) and the retrieval keys have
been assigned to each table. Since there are two key elements in
both the tables, it can be said that the each table has compound/
composite keys. This process of normalisation has simplified the
data.

2. Second normal form:

In this stage of normalisation, all non-key elements that are fully
specified by something other than the complete key are placed in a
separate table. Normally, these non-key elements are dependent on
only a part of a compound key.

Taking into consideration Table 1.1, a composite key consisting of

Supplier_ ID and Purchase order no. is being used. However, the
non key elements such as supplier’s name and address are depend-
ant only on supplier_ id and not on Purchase order no. Thus, these
non-key data elements are placed in separate tables along with the
key data element—supplier_ id.

Similarly, the non-key data elements such as date, terms of payment

and shipping terms are dependant only on purchase order no. and
thus are placed in a separate table along with purchase order no. as
key element. Now, we have three tables in place of Table 1.1:

Similarly, we can split Table 1.2 by separating non-key elements

such as description, unit of measurement and price, that are
dependent only on a product code in a table. Likewise, the product
code, quantity and amount dependent on purchase order no and the
S. No. are placed in a separate table.

The second normal form (2NF) is ready now and there are five
tables.

3. Third normal form:

This stage of normalisation enables eliminating redundant data
elements and tables that are subsets of other tables. The redundant
elements are those non-key data elements that are placed in more
than one table of the virtual data elements.

The virtual data elements are those elements whose value can be
computed using other elements as and when the value is demanded.
The value of amount data element in Table 1.2.2 can be computed
by multiplying the quantity with the price thereby eliminating such
redundant data elements.

If another table called suppliers master table is also being main-

tained in the database, it is likely that Table 1.1.2 would be a subset
of supplier’s master table. Thus, this table may also be eliminated.

The third normal form (3NF) offers the grouping of data that is
simple, easily maintainable and with minimum redundancy.

Thus, normalisation can help in reducing redundancy as well as

eliminate other anomalies in data. The three-step normalisation
process discussed above is only suggestive. Further attempts may be
made while designing databases, if necessary based on the nature of
data.