Controversies and Comments About Standards

STANDARDS SHOULD BE INDEPENDENT OF BUSINESS

The industry standard originated by SAE and ISO organizations are in the process of joining forces. The result of this is an even slower development time than before. Because of the makeup of these various committees, the representatives are often as concerned about protecting business as the development of good standards. We often go beyond the standards to assure an adequate level of protection for the operators of our machines. New or changed standards would be developed quicker if the forming committees were independent of industry influence.

Steve Blanchard
Senior Development Engineer

GOOD STANDARDS ARE UNIVERSALLY APPLIED

[A good standard is] one that is primary, one that no matter where I go in the world, what industry I move into, the measurement I make will be referenced to the same primary.

This could be applied to anything, the measurements that I make, the minimum braking power of a vehicle, the pollution that turbofan engine makes at 40,000 ft or the way in which health care is provided.

Unfortunately, industry's primary standard is not based on any of these. It is based on return on investment and if maintaining any other standard gets in the way of that then watch out.

I am an Instrument Mechanic and deal with standards in the field of measurement, performance etc. of industrial instrumentation.

Thankfully, most of the standards I use are based on physics and physical properties and cannot be messed with by industry.

The definition of "Industry Standard" is "this is the way we do it and to hell with you". That's why we have VHS and BETA, NTSC and PAL, BSW and ANC etc., all wonderful standards....

Sorry to be so cynical, but I have to work with this stuff. Obviously the people you talk to have the easy part, setting it.

Peter Bowen

STANDARDS SHOULD BE CLEAR

Q. What is YOUR definition of a "good" standard?
A. Terminnology understandable by all team members.

Kao Spenser

CREDIBILITY RULES

A good standard is "one that commands credibility."

Chris Kenney

TOO FAST AND TOO SLOW

Standards come too fast. I have a five foot book shelf on safety standards for packaging machinery. The Europeans are especially good at generating standards. I swear; European engineers must be required to take three or four quarters of standards writing to graduate.... Standards evolve quickly when developed by small groups of private or government organizations (Internet, computer bus standards), but when large groups try to develop them, the final draft or the technology becomes obsolete.

Bob Ziller
Electrical Engineer (retired)

TOO FREQUENT AND NEVER FAST ENOUGH

Standards obviously have as their purpose the solidification and definition of developed mature technology. As such they almost never need changing. Revisions oftener than at ten year intervals are a destructive, disruptive nuisance. Even ten-year intervals may be too frequent. Standards by definition serve to manage stability....

It ought to be crystal clear that it is now impossible (if indeed it ever was possible) to control emergent technology through standards.... Emergent technologies now measure their change times in weeks. I doubt you can even get to press on the Internet with this wonderful information. How can you possibly stabilize and standardize such information? By the time you achieve satisfactory publication response times the speed of change will have moved down to days. You will never be able to keep up or catch up. You will never stabilize that which is inherently unstable. You do us a costly disservice to try. This kind of change must be managed, to be sure, but this requires a whole new (higher speed) method other than standardization....

If I'm going to work and purchase to current specifications and play by the rules I must updated every drawing, every bill of material, every routing, every purchase order, every work order, etc. Millions of documents will be impacted. Millions of sheets of paper will be wasted. Technology has not been especially advanced.

Herb Swanson

AVAILABILITY TO DEVELOPING NATIONS

I am working in the developing country of Indonesia. We dreamt about the available sources of the standards. To answer to your questions, my answers:

Q. How do you use standards?

A. Looking at most available [current] one. In the developing country this is the most difficult problem to solve, beside the language problem....

Q. What is YOUR definition of a "good" standard?

A. Good standard easy to access and meet the market needs. We hope that your globalization of the standard will one day provide developing country to be able to access from the Internet easily.

Oei Yam Tjhioe
Jakarta, Indonesia

NO FUNDING FOR NEEDED STANDARDS

I am on the SAE Committee Task Force developing standards and testing methodology for spindle nuts on commercial trucks and buses. Spindle-nut failures have catastrophic results leading to loss of life and millions of dollars of damage on our nation's highways every year. The sad part about this: we need funding to proceed with developing the standards.

Leslie J. Weinstein
True-Lock, LLC

ANSI CONSENSUS MODEL IS MOST FAIR

As a participant and co-chair of the 1993 Z400.1 MSDS Standard and the 1994 Z129.1 labeling standard and chair of the 1998 Z400.1 MSDS Standard workgroup, I agree that the consensus process used in developing ANSI standards is the most fair and open process I have ever encountered. Unlike some "standards" which seem to be developed by and for a group of consultants or other special interests, the ANSI process requires careful attention to the comments and votes of the canvas panel. Let's hope that more of our standards move to the ANSI style consensus process where all affected parties are given the opportunity to have their views heard.

Dan Levine
President, Product Safety Solutions

STANDARDS ARE DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW

Having to comply with CE requirements on many products has been a real challenge. We have been forced to improve and re-design many products to be compliant. It has been very beneficial and worth every effort required.

I have problems with the bias towards metric only, and components that don't have approvals in Europe and North America. I have a problem with requiring manufactures with non-CE member facilities (us) to use third party testing on everything and being 100% compliant while locals self certify based on there understanding of the standards.

I would like to see some US standards formed that would counter pressure CE and eventually force a common worldwide standard to be developed.

David Kerzel
Chief Engineer

See response by John P. Schweisthal.

PRIVATE STANDARDS ARE LIVING DOCUMENTS

We use 3 discipline specific standards (i.e.: Electrical/I&C, Mechanical and Civil/Structural). These cover most of the facets of a CADD file including Working Units, Level use, Colors, Line weight, etc.

We use our standards to provide consistency in drawing production so that any Designer can open a CADD file and know what to expect to see.

Our CADD Standards are considered a living document and as such are updated to reflect new versions of the software we use (Bentley MicroStation) and any new timesaving work methods.

A good standard should be both user-friendly and comprehensive enough to produce a consistent product.

Richard Drescher
Civil/Structural Designer, CADD Coordinator
Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station

JOIN IN! We'd like to know how you feel about standards. Please e-mail me at the address below. Tell us who and where you are, and what position you hold. Then, kindly answer the following questions:

1. What kinds of standards are most important to you in your work?
2. How do you use them?
3. Are they updated on a timely basis?
4. What is YOUR definition of a "good" standard?

We will print a representative sampling of the answers we receive, and, unless notified otherwise, we will provide attribution. Please let us know if you do not wish to be identified and/or to have your employer's name listed if you're among the people whom we quote.

Thanks,
Jaren Green, Editor
jaren.green@ihs.com
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