Importance of standardization

Some people say that rules make life harder. That’s because changing your mind and habits can be a difficult task. It depends on personal change management. Some people adapt easier to changes. On the other hand, when people gain certain habits, it’s easier to communicate and interact with other people. Same conclusion stands for machines too. For any interaction, there have to be some kind of agreement. Standard is defined as a framework of agreements to which all relevant parties in an industry or organization must adhere to ensure that all processes associated with creation of a goods are performed within set guidelines. Standards enable communication between the people. Different scientific areas have different standards. For example, engineers use them for expressing their thoughts and ideas.

Evolution of standards can be seen through evolution of length measurement. Historically, there have been many standards of this kind. Generally, the problem was the referring length. For example, one ell was a unit of measurement which was defined as length of man’s arm from the elbow (about 18 inches). But different people have different arm lengths, so measurement wasn’t consistent. English king Henry I made a standard that his arm was a referent length. That contributed to measurement consistency. Standard differences created different problems through history. Differences in train track gauges are particularly interesting. These differences can make international transport more difficult. Different geographical locations have different standards.

Sometimes standards can last really long and have huge influence. For example, see this story about the connection between the space shuttle and horse’s rear end. Standards can last millenniums long, even from Roman times. Romans made a great contribution to western civilization by introducing various standards.
Standards are usually created by organizations, companies and committees. Some standards first become de facto standards and after that they become widely recognized and codified (de jure). In standardization committees, there are usually experienced people who are working in specific field or in company that is important for that field. Newest tech advancements are usually codified in standard form. That means standards can be used to obtain information about current state of technology development. Standardization is the final level of innovation. It’s a step that leads to wider use of that innovation. Basically, it follows the innovation process.

If there is a system that has multiple parts or components, those parts or components can be created by different companies. For system to function, it’s essential that those parts work together and to communicate. Connection between parts is an interface. Interoperability is a property of a system or sub system to work with other systems and be compatible with their interfaces. That’s what enables the possibility that products from different vendors function together.
Nowadays, information exchange is really important for society. Standardization in information exchange is happening on different abstraction levels. There are many communication interfaces presented. Interface standard describes characteristics that are needed for information exchange between the systems or sub systems. Communication protocols are examples of these standards. Languages can be viewed as communication standards.

Making rules has an important place in human society. Standards can be described as rules. More rules people have to follow, more investments in understanding those standards, through education and other ways, have to be made. Andrew S. Tannenbaum once said: “The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.” Existence of many standards implies that there are many ways of doing different things. It’s all about a choice. At first it’s a choice weather to use standards at all. Afterwards using them becomes a necessity, especially when someone’s effort has to become the part of overall human activity.