Introduction
Standards can promote product acceptance, reduce costs and provide assurance to consumers and regulators on quality, safety and reliability. They have extremely wide applicability and are a critical factor in quality management, assurance and control.
Standards for weights and measures come under regulatory control (see [The quality infrastructure - roles of the different bodies]). This article is concerned with documentary standards.
Most businesses use standards as a source of knowledge and have to conform with many, either as a way of meeting customer needs or to achieve regulatory compliance.
The literature on standards and standardisation is incomplete, diverse and often contradictory, making the subject difficult for the layman to access and use.
Much of the standards' development activity undertaken by national, regional and international standards bodies can be traced back to its roots in technical standardisation and serving the public interest. This perspective is too restrictive for today's quality practitioner and business management. A wider view has therefore been taken in this article.
Key terms
Standard - a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognised body, that provides, for common and repeated use, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context (ISO/IEC Guide 2, 1996).
Standardisation - 'Establishing and applying an agreed set of solutions, intended for repeated application, directed at benefits for stakeholders and balancing their diverse interests' (BSI).
More simply, standards are an agreed way of doing something against which criteria may be measured. They record desired performance.
Overview
Standards are mainly voluntary but some can be called up in legislation. In the (UK) national and European context many formal standards are used to support EU product directives and can provide an effective route to mandatory compliance.
Until the 1990s standards' development principally occurred at three levels - company, national and international. Trade association standards contributed a fourth intermediate, industry level. With the advent of the European Union, another significant level, regional, was introduced.
Since then the trend has been for progressively more decentralised standards' development. New methods for development have been introduced in attempts to speed up the process. In fast moving technology areas, such as information and communications, this has also enabled a more economic focus but this is not always without penalties.
Conflicting technical standards can have serious negative impacts on consumer acceptance of products and industry attractiveness. As electronic systems, for example, become more complex and involve growing numbers of complementary products, standards take on an increasing importance and need to be managed strategically.
The publication Best Practice… Next Practice: How to survive, innovate and grow in an ever changing world (BSI, 2005) provides guidance on the strategic use of standardisation.
Sources and use of standards: national, EU and international
Sources
- Standards can usually be obtained directly from the developing organization. Most now offer online purchasing facilities
- Some standards and supporting materials are available from the respective organization's website free of charge, others have restricted availability and may only be available as part of a licensing or some other form of agreement.
- In addition to standards developers, there are a number of distributors of standards. These organizations often provide combinations of additional regulations or other documents relevant to the subject area as part of a package. This can prove attractive for those needing to keep up to date in a specific technical or specialist areas, since all the required documents are available in the same format form the same source
- BSI British Standards, as the UK's national standards body, acts as a source of national, regional and international standards and standards related materials
Use
With the coming of globalisation, new and more complex interrelated industry structure, the importance of standards as 'a glue to hold things together' has grown. Standards may be used for a variety of purposes. Some of the main ones are:
In business:
- cost effective regulatory compliance
- governance, reduction of risk and liability
- remove barriers to trade and improve market access
- assurance of quality
- simplification and variety control, leading to cost reduction
- improve position and inter-working within a supply chain
- basis for innovation and differentiation
In government:
- supporting, or in some cases replacing, regulation
- implementation of public policy
- within government operations, eg public procurement
In general society:
- information regarding product/service choice, effective use, safety, etc
- assess the quality and relative value of products/services
- consumer protection, in the form of codes, systems of redress, assurance of safety, environmental impact, etc
Further information on the application of standards and how standardisation works can be found at www.nssf.info
Process of development, development bodies and committees
Process
Standards are developed when a clear need has been defined. The principles, rules and processes may vary between standards developers.
The process of standards development usually goes through a number of steps, including:
- proposal - by a stakeholder
- acceptance - by a representative committee/ the standards developer
- drafting - development of the standard by subject experts
- consultation - the draft standard is circulated for wider review and comment
- review of comments - by the drafting committee and changes to the standard made accordingly
- approval - following committee consensus, approval to the final text is given
- publication - the standard is made available for implementation
Following publication, most standards developing organizations operate some form of regular review process to ensure that their standards collections are kept up to date.
Development bodies
Standards are developed by a range of organizations and can be directed at various purposes, some strictly commercial, others for the public good. These include:
- formal standards developing organizations (see below)
- open source
- trade associations
- industry or government body or NGO (a wide class of standards developers, some of which may be dedicated to standards, eg Investors in People, or have standardisation as a significant element of their activity, eg the CQI has developed standards in areas such as digital imaging and small business management. Many government departments are also active standards developers.)
- consortia
- alliances
- company
The significance of informal standards' development should not be underestimated. For example, standards for the internet are primarily developed under the auspices of the Internet Society (www.isoc.org ).
Information about informal standards' development and links to many of the organizations involved can be found at www.consortiuminfo.org
The principle formal standards bodies are:
International
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (www.iso.org )
- International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) (www.iec.ch )
- International Telecommunications Union (ITU) (www.itu.int )
Regional (European)
- European Committee for Standardization (CEN) (www.cen.eu )
- European committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) (www.cenelec.eu )
- European Telecommunications standards Institute (ETSI) (www.etsi.org )
National (UK only)
The World Standards Services Network provides listings and links to many international, regional and national standards bodies at http://www.wssn.net/WSSN/index.html.
Committees
The common vehicle for standards' development is the committee. BSI British Standards alone supports nearly 2,500 technical committees, representing a range of stakeholder interests including:
- government
- business and industry
- suppliers and users, including consumers
- trades unions and societal interests
- academic and professional bodies
Committee membership may be restricted or open, depending on the standards developing organization concerned. For most formal standards' development the national standards body acts as a gateway to regional and international participation.
BSI British Standards has an excellent section of its web site (http://www.bsi-global.com/en/Standards-and-Publications/About-BSI-British-Standards/) dedicated to explaining the rules and structures under which it operates and the details of the standards' development process. User-friendly guidance to standardisation is also included.
Development, use and role of corporate standards
Company standards are developed to provide clear articulation of agreed principles, policies and practices. As such, they can be at any level - from the company's ultimate performance standard, its vision, to a component of a product; and at any stage in the company's processes, from research and development to customer service.
Company standards can occur in a variety of guises, including technical specifications, operational procedures and personal key result areas. It is most common to find them at the traditional points where some degree of control or performance management is needed, such as:
- materials and parts
- machines/ equipment
- methods/processes/procedures
- people
The cross-company nature of standards suggests that the system for managing them should operate across the organization. In many companies, however, standards' management is now decentralised.
The process for developing standards within a company may therefore vary considerably according to the function concerned. The benefits derived will also be different, even within a functional area, such as purchasing.
Steps in developing company standards may include:
- check whether external or company standards already exist for the specific item or issue
- engage the appropriate functions and experts in the development process
- draft, circulate, review and approve the standard
- issue in the standard format and under document control
- implement the standard using robust project management
- measure against the standard, incorporating any external regulatory reporting of compliance or demonstration of assurance required
- maintain and review the standard, both from an internal need and external perspective
Useful references on aspects of company standards include:
Standards Management. A Handbook for Profits (ANSI, 1990) - which includes many contributions from various sectors providing practical advice on all aspects of standardisation within a company.
The New Standardization. Keystone of Continuous Improvement in Manufacturing (Productivity Press, 1993) - which provides a fundamental approach to implementing standards as the foundation for quality management, assurance and control.
The member only page focuses on the implications for CQI members and their companies and describes:
- the various types of standards and some hierarchies
- what standardisation is and the implications for members
- industry/ professional participation in standards' development
- consideration of the business case for participating
- company standards' management