Information about Standardization

The term standardization or standardisation can have several meanings depending on its context. Common use of the word standard implies that it is a universally agreed-upon set of guidelines for interoperability. However, the plurality of standards-issuing organizations means that a document purporting to be a "standard" doesn't necessarily have the support of many parties. As Grace Hopper said, "The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from".

Usage

In the context of technologies and industries, standardization is the process of establishing a technical specification, called a standard, among competing entities in a market, where this will bring benefits without hurting competition. It can also be viewed as a mechanism for optimising economic use of scarce resources such as forests, which are threatened by paper manufacture. As an example, all of Europe now uses 230 volt 50 Hz AC mains grids and GSM mobile phones, and (at least officially) measures lengths in metres. The United Kingdom has officially accepted metres for business purposes but feet and inches are still widely used by the general public.

In the context of social criticism and social sciences, standardization often means the process of establishing standards of various kinds, and improving efficiency to handle people, their interactions, cases, and so forth. Examples include formalization of judicial procedure in court, and establishing uniform criteria for diagnosing mental disease. Standardization in this sense is often discussed along with (or synonymously to) such large-scale social changes as modernization, bureaucratization, homogenization, and centralization of society.

In the context of business information exchanges, standardization refers to the process of developing data exchange standards for specific business processes using specific syntaxes. These standards are usually developed in voluntary consensus standards bodies such as the United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT), the World Wide Web Consortium W3C, and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

Standards can be de facto, which means they are followed for convenience, or de jure, which means they are used because of (more or less) legally binding contracts and documents. Government agencies often have to follow standards issued by official standardization organizations. Following such standards can also be a prerequisite for doing business on certain markets, with certain companies, or within certain consortia.

A standard can be open or proprietary.

There are many worldwide standards and drafts (for example, for the standardization of powercords) developed and maintained by the ISO, the IEC, or the ITU.

Regional standards bodies also exist such as CEN, CENELEC, ETSI, and the IRMM in Europe, the Pan American Standards Commission (COPANT), the Pacific Area Standards Congress (PASC), the African Organization for Standardization (ARSO), the Arab Industrial Development and Mining Organization (AIDMO), and others.

Sub-regional standards organizations also exist such as the MERCOSUR Standardization Association (AMN), the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), and the ASEAN Consultative Committee for Standards and Quality (ACCSQ).

In general, each country or economy has a single recognized National Standards Body (NSB). Examples include ABNT, ANSI, BSI, DGN, DIN, IRAM, JISC, KATS, SABS, SAC, SCC, SIS, SNZ. An NSB is likely the sole member from that economy in ISO.

NSBs may be either public or private sector organizations, or combinations of the two. For example, the three NSBs of Canada, Mexico and the United States are respectively the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the General Bureau of Standards (Dirección General de Normas, DGN), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). SCC is a Canadian Crown Corporation, DGN is a governmental agency within the Mexican Ministry of Economy, and ANSI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with members from both the private and public sectors. The determinates of whether an NSB for a particular economy is a public or private sector body may include the historical and traditional roles that the private sector fills in public affairs in that economy or the development stage of that economy.

Many specifications that govern the operation and interaction of devices and software on the Internet are de facto standards. To preserve the word "standard" as the domain of relatively disinterested bodies such as ISO, the W3C, for example, publishes "Recommendations", and the IETF publishes "Requests for Comments" (RFCs). These publications are often informally referred to as being standards.

In a military context, standardization is defined as: The development and implementation of concepts, doctrines, procedures and designs to achieve and maintain the required levels of compatibility, interchangeability or commonality in the operational, procedural, material, technical and administrative fields to attain interoperability.

Note: there are at least four levels of standardization. In order they are: compatibility, interchangeability, commonality and reference. These standardization processes create compatibility, similarity, measurement and symbol standards.

In ISO terminology, ISO standards are technical agreements which provide the framework for compatible technology worldwide.

Other uses

In herbal medicine standardization refers to providing processed plant material that meets a specified concentration of a specific marker constituent. However plant constituents have synergy and even active constituent concentrations may be misleading measures of potency if cofactors are not present. A further problem is that the important constituent is often unknown. For instance St. Johnswort is often standardized to hypericin which is now known not to be the "active ingredient'. Other companies standardize to hyperforin or both, although there may be some 24 known possible constituents. Different companies use different markers, or different levels of the same markers, or different methods of testing for marker compounds. Herbalist and manufacturer David Winston points out that whenever different compounds are chosen as "active ingredients" for different herbs, there is a chance that suppliers will get a substandard batch (low on the chemical markers) and mix it with a batch higher in the desired marker to compensate for the difference.^[1]

In statistics, standardization refers to conversion to standard scores.

In test theory, standardization refers to measurements or assessments conducted under exact, specified, and repeatable conditions.

In supply chain management, standardization refers to approaches for increasing commonality of either part, process, product or procurement. Such change will enable delayed making of manufacturing or procurement decisions, thus reducing variability found in having many non-standard components.

From a modern economics point of view, standardization process starts with a social problem known as "coordination dilemma". Standards, as "voluntary norms", serve to facilitate the resolution of coordination dilemmas and realize mutual gains; then standard refer also to a kind of social dilemma solution.

See also

• International standard
• ASTM
• Open standard
• Standard (disambiguation)
• Standards organizations
• Open system
• Open format
• Vendor lock-in
• Embrace, extend and extinguish
• Conformity assessment
• Network effect
• OpenDocument
• Standard gauge
• 7.62×51 NATO rifle cartridge

References