Standards and standardization processes

Standards regulate, simplify and make possible an extensive division of labour which should be recognized as a necessary basis for far-reaching modernization processes

 Standardized technology abound and make perfectly good sense. It simplifies otherwise complicated choices, enables large scale integration, and it is the basis for a division of labour. The standardization of the design of cars created such a division of labour between car manufacturers and suppliers of standardized parts ranging from roller bearings and lamps to complete motors

Types of standards
Standards abound.
David and Greenstein (1990, p. 4) distinguish among three kinds of standards: reference, minimum quality and compatibility standards.

Standardization processes and strategies

Information infrastructures, like many other kinds of large technical systems (Hughes 1987), are standardized by formal, quasi-democratic, international standardization bodies (Lehr 1992). These standardization bodies have to follow predefined procedures and rules regulating the status, organization and process of developing standards. In recognition of the limits of both market forces and hierarchical control, formal standardization is a key strategy for developing an information infrastructure (OECD 1991)

OSI
OSI is short for the ISO Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model. OSI was worked out by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) in the early 80s. ISO is a voluntary, non-treaty organization that was founded just after World War II and produce international standards of a wide range of types. The members of ISO are national standardization bureaus rather than individuals or organizations. Members include national standardization organizations like ANSI (from the US), BSI (from Great Britain), AFNOR (from France) and DIN (from Germany)

 ISO is divided into a number of technical committees according to whether the focus is on specification of nuts and bolts for construction work, paint quality or computer software. There are several hundreds technical committees within ISO. The "real" work is done by the several thousand non-paid volunteers in the working groups. A number of working groups belong to a subcommittees which, again, belong to a technical committee. To refer to the members of the working groups as non-paid volunteers merely implies that they are not paid or employed by ISO as such. They are typically employed by large vendors, consumer organizations or governmental institutions. Historically, vendors have dominated standards committees

Techniques
There are typically four different techniques for standardization Simplification or variety control Codification Value engineering Statistical process control

Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq1Zi_V4KyE