Celebrating how to level the business playing field on World Standards Day
International Standards provide technological, economic and societal benefits by helping to harmonise the product, system and service technical specifications that make industry more efficient. Barriers to international trade are reduced or removed. Not only that, but conformity to International Standards also helps reassure consumers that products are safe, efficient and good for the environment. Celebrating these benefits on 14th of October will be World Standards Day. James Hunt reports:
World Standards Day is not just this year. Each year on the 14th of October, the members of the IEC, ISO and ITU celebrate World Standards Day, a way of paying tribute to the collaborative efforts of the thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as international standards.
Though many complain about cost and bureaucracy, it is fact that International Standards, which enable the broad sharing of knowledge and the dissemination of technological advances in developed and developing countries alike, are strategic tools and guidelines designed to help companies tackle some of the most demanding challenges of modern business.
Moreover, they help businesses to ensure that their operations are as efficient as they can be, increasing productivity and helping companies to access new markets.
Technical barriers arise when different organisations, from anywhere in the world, come together, each with a large user base, all carrying out certain well-established operation that - between them - is mutually incompatible. Establishing International Standards is one way of overcoming this very significant problem.
Standardisation has long crucial for innovation and economic growth. However, the world economy is becoming truly global, so standards now have an even more important role. Those countries that have made International Standards integral to their policies and regulations are better able to protect their populations and provide them with a bigger choice of high quality products.
As the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) says: “This becomes ever more important, as today we live in a world that is undergoing profound transformations at every level. Economies have never been more interdependent, and products that are consumed in one market are no longer made in one country; they are ‘made in the world’. In addition, even before they get to the end-consumer, they transit through many countries where manpower or parts add value to the final product.”
This is the most important reason for the existence of International Standards, but having effective standards are crucial even in National environments. Think, for example, how the UK electrical installation sector would fare without the IET Wiring Regulations (BS 7671); without this standard it would be a disaster, and dangerous to boot. There are many other examples of this.
World Standards Day 2014 will celebrate the ways in which standards level the playing field for all market participants.
A competition
Each World Standards Day runs a competition that is open to everyone. This, the annual World Standards Day poster competition, is organised by the World Standards Cooporation (WSC -
www.worldstandardscooperation.org , which comprises the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC -
www.iec.ch, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO -
www.iso.org) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU -
www.itu.int).This year's competition winner was Damar Panji Wijaya, a 20 year-old communications student from Indonesia.
Note that the IEC family comprises 166 countries, 98% of the world population and 96% of world energy generation. Many members celebrate World Standards Day with national activities.
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