1.1 General Introduction
The history of standards goes back a long way. As early as 1750 BC. the Codex Hammurabi stated : āThe master of the building will receive a death penalty if he has constructed a house which breaks down and kills the people insideā (Ā§229). The Third Book of Moses (19: 35ā36) says: āYou shall not use incorrect length, weight and volume in front of the justice. Right weight, right balance and right volumes shall be used before Jahveh, your God, who has guided you out of Egypt to meet all rules and follow the rights.ā This was written around 1000 BC.
In China, in 2200 BC, the Emperor Qin Shihuangdi produced common technical standards for the wheels of transport waggons, the width of the city gates, the dimensions of the streets, for measures of length and weight and for water pipes, weapons and armour.
Standards leave room for creativity when the government of a country sets up rules for traffic or for the format of film material, or when standards define test procedures for Bacillus cereus on worldwide basis.
Standards leave more room for creativity where each village sets up rules for traffic or if each camera manufacturer uses his own format for the film material or if each iceācream manufacturer defines his own test procedure for Bacillus cereus.
Standards leave even more room for creativity when each car driver sets up his own rules for traffic, or if each photograph uses his own film material, or each iceācream seller tests his ice cream by watching if people feel bad after eating it, or if each computer manufacturer uses his own hardware.
Standards are everywhere but we usually do not recognize them.
Credit cards are an example of standardization. Each bank could have developed its own creditācard design. Round, square, thick, thin, one or two chips and so on. Would they have gained worldwide acceptance? Which would be best for withdrawing money from machines? Even the purse has adapted to the size of the credit card.
Paper sizes (such as B4 in the United States or DIN A4 in Europe) are another example of standardization. Paper sizes are used by printers, for envelopes, publications and so on.
Nobody is obliged to use standards ā the only requirement is that products are safe. Manufacturers who do not use standards may find that their products are hard to sell and that it is difficult for them to gain acceptance. Not making the use of standards mandatory opens the door for research and new developments. If all manufacturers always had to use the same manufacturing process and use the same principles, the development of new products would be hindered.
If a new creditācard design appears that is better and safer, users will accept it and a new āstandardā credit card would develop and penetrate the market. All other services using credit cards would adapt to this new standard. This is only possible if the market is flexible and standards are not mandatory.
Standards are a way to create order and give a basis for cooperation. They offer stateāofātheāart solutions for continuously repeated tasks.
Standardization is a regularly planned process of writing standards according to rules. It is not carried out for the benefit of any single interested party.
Waldemar Hellmich, the first chairman of the standardization organization for general mechanical engineering, Normenausschuss der deutschen Industrie, stated in 1917: āWriting standards is crucial work. Those involved often fight with nontechnical arguments for economic reasons.ā
1.2 War on Standards
A āwar on standardsā can happen when someone has an interest in avoiding standards in certain technical fields. There are various reasons why they happen. In most cases they ended up with more disadvantages than advantages for the industry and also for society. Todayās leading standardization organizations follow the recommendations of the WTO, which include rules to avoid such wars on standards.
Here are some examples. The width of railroad tracks varies for different reasons ā for instance competition, military reasons or strategic reasons to protect markets. In the United States the railroad track width is different in the north and south. Spain and Russia are different from the rest of Europe.
Sometimes incompatibility may exist by chance or because nobody really recognized that it would be a problem at the beginning. Once it is there, it stays for a long time. In Europe this happened with the power supply, which is different in different European countries. The soācalled āEurope plu...
