Standards Manage Your Business
We Manage Your Standards
Standards Manage Your Business
We Manage Your Standards
There is broad agreement that organizations' capability to promote innovation and creativity while controlling the quality of their products and services are the key drivers of competitive advantage. In their endeavour to enhance business, organizations frame their policies indicating a commitment to deliver enhanced value to their customers. This is generally done through continually improving their products/processes and services. The emphasis and focus are being shifted towards:
During the 1990s, organizations started getting formal recognition of various Management Systems frameworks like QMS, EMS, OHSAS, etc., and their focus then shifted to ISMS, PIMS, and EnMS. This aligns with new areas of concern like security, sustainability, circular economy, etc., while maintaining and upgrading the earlier compliances.
Though these frameworks are pretty structured and robust, they are generic because they apply to businesses of various sizes and natures. The user of these frameworks struggle for reference architecture and benchmarks for designing their processes, which have a high-value proposition and bring efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance, leading to better business results.
As an organization grows, management looks for more formal systems with result-oriented structures where information is institutionalized. Knowledge is the key differentiator for a mature organization from its competitors.
While not completely synonymous, "knowledge" is often considered a key component of professionalism. Having a deep understanding and expertise in a field is a significant aspect of professionalism. The maturity process moves from Awareness to Wisdom.
| Stage | Knowledge Type |
|---|---|
| Awareness (Availability of content) | DATA (Explicit) |
| Understanding & Trial | INFORMATION (Combined) |
| Adoption | INFORMATION (Interpreted) |
| Absorption | INTELLIGENCE (Insight Externalized) |
| Institutionalization | KNOWLEDGE (Internalized, Learned) |
| Business & Society Linkages | WISDOM |
Standards are pivotal in an organization's maturity journey, guiding it from data to wisdom. Standards facilitate this growth by providing rationale and building the narrative in the business environment context.
Standardization of wisdom (institutionalization of information) is crucial for organizations as it ensures consistent quality and supports governance and Risk Management Standards for their product design, manufacturing, and vendor development, ultimately contributing to a robust and reliable delivery of products/systems. For sustainable growth, organizations strive:
Due to the constant evolution of technology in various domains, the role of standards in the product life cycle needs to be better understood. The professionals can derive high value by understanding and implementing these best practices and benchmarks. Standards generally define these.
A standard is defined as a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results aimed at achieving the optimum degree of order in a given context. Similarly, standardization is formulating and applying rules for an orderly approach to a specific activity for the benefit and with the cooperation of all concerned, particularly for promoting an optimal overall economy, considering functional conditions and safety requirements. It is based on consolidated results from science, technique, and experience. It determines the basis for the present and future development and should keep pace with progress. These standards' attributes and the standardisation process's robustness make them a powerful tool for effective system design to meet the challenges of compliance and growth.
Any organization that develops and approves standards using various methods to establish consensus among its participants is called a standards development organization (SDO). These organizations may be accredited, international treaty-based, private sector-based, an international consortium, or a government agency.
Examples of SDOs:
ISO Standards have developed over 25,311 International Standards in various fields by more than 300 Technical Committees covering:
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC Standards) has developed over 12,000+ International Standards in various fields by more than 115 Technical Committees covering:
Organizations strive to address risk in the uncertain business environment. These risks come from various sources and domains/regulations like safety, environment, information security, and privacy. The standards are also needed for:
Standards help in defining structures where, apart from responsibilities, accountability is also framed in technical terms of risk owner (person or entity with the accountability and authority to manage risk) and process owner (person or team responsible for defining and maintaining a process).
A layered architecture is generally recommended for designing a management system, consisting of governance, management and policy formulation layers for Strategic management, designing of processes and procedures for tactical management, operational management and working instruments/templates for operational practitioners. Standards shall be used to formulate various Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which may apply to all three levels of organizational manpower.
The organization's maturity is measured by the strength of its standard operating procedures and how they are benchmarked with globally recommended practices or global standards. To keep it current, the same shall be regularly reviewed and upgraded, keeping in view the amendments in the source standards on which SOP was based, the publication of new standards with the advancement of technologies and the emergence of new concepts and theories. The same shall be institutionalized by incorporating “Key Pointers” in SOP, also known as control points/recommended practices adopted from these global standards/benchmarks. This will facilitate the enhancement of the organization's maturity and growth in business as an inbuilt agenda.
Specific and Detailed: It clearly defines each step of a process with precise instructions, leaving no room for ambiguity.
Easy to Understand: It uses simple language and formatting, making it readily understandable for all employees, regardless of their experience level.
Visually Appealing: Incorporates diagrams, flowcharts, or images to enhance comprehension.
Regularly Updated: Periodically reviewed and revised to reflect procedures, regulations, or technology changes.
Traceable: Includes documentation allowing for tracking of actions and decision-making within the Process (traceable to global/source standards).
Quality Focused: Emphasizes quality control measures to maintain consistent standards in the output.
Compliance Oriented: Adheres to relevant industry regulations and standards.
Accountability Defined: Assign responsibility for each task within the procedure.
Feedback Mechanism: A system for gathering feedback and improving the SOP over time.
Accessible: It is easily accessible to all employees through a centralized system.
To summarise, a good SOP shall be accurate (to the extent that it can be treated as a statement of truth), compliant with legal/regulatory requirements, if any, in the context, precise, comprehensive and complete. The SOP should be tested and validated by trials, and sufficient training should be provided to its audience/user for implementation.
In the complex environment of business challenges, Company Standardization holds an important position. It is the first level at which the corporate interest begins to function and organized effort becomes predominant. This company's standardization functions as a source and a sink of information. As a source, they generate standard operating procedures (SOP), policies and processes. As a sink, this function uses global standards as tools & means to formulate compliance procedures with regulatory requirements, contract requirements, companies' policies and other miscellaneous requirements. No standards program of any enterprise can be successful without relying heavily on other standards – national & International standards in particular.
A Standards Engineer is a practitioner of the discipline of standardization of any level and branch of specialization. A standards engineer creates, maintains, and enforces technical standards for an organization by facilitating the requirement of the standards into SOP's. They ensure that products and services meet industry regulations and standards. Maintains an up-to-date library of all relevant standards, keeps abreast of national and international development in standardization and provides information and advice on all standards matters. This need not be a full-time function, depending on the organization's culture, risk, and availability of resources. This functional responsibility can be assigned to any of the existing functionalities in the organization, such as the Quality assurance manager co, compliance manager li, library/TIC, Knowledge hub, etc.
Identify the role of the resource person as a standards engineer. Top management should commit to building this library of knowledge for the organization's growth. This commitment can be shown by providing the resources for professionals (e.g., standards engineers) to execute this task, as well as budgetary support and a policy on the expenditure for this task.
Establish activities and tasks to identify the organization's need for various standards. Often, this is done through a committee to make it a comprehensive work that is justifiable and minimizes selection.
It is recommended that you focus on the management system standards initially. A management system is how an organization manages the interrelated parts of its business to achieve its objectives. These objectives can relate to a number of different topics, including product or service quality, operational efficiency, environmental performance, health and safety in the workplace, and more.
The system's complexity level will depend on each organization's specific context. For some organizations, especially smaller ones, it may simply mean having strong leadership from the business owner, providing a clear definition of what is expected from each employee and how they contribute to the organization's overall objectives without extensive documentation. More complex businesses operating, for example, in highly regulated sectors, may need extensive documentation and controls to fulfil their legal obligations and meet their organizational objectives.
The benefits of an effective management system for an organization include:
Identify the resource organization, a distributor with an established quality management system and a channel partner with the desired SDO's. Proficient in providing its standards provisioning services in real-time online, considering your business criticality.
Identify the standards required in different configurations, like:
Economic consideration should be given to the procurement scale since standards should be treated as knowledge assets. The procurement cost is not linear; the more you purchase, the more you save. View your future requirements from this perspective and build some cushion for them.
The following factors may be considered when identifying the standards needed for short, medium and long term:
To be a frontline and forward-looking organization, keep tracking upcoming standards in emerging areas, e.g., following areas that are all-pervasive and will be a compulsive business requirement in the near future.
ISO 42001 is a globally recognized standard that provides guidelines for the governance and management of AI technologies. It offers a systematic approach to addressing the challenges associated with AI implementation in a recognized management system framework covering areas such as ethics, accountability, transparency and data privacy. Designed to oversee the various aspects of artificial intelligence, it provides an integrated approach to managing AI projects, from risk assessment to effective treatment of these risks.
Standards are intellectual assets, and massive efforts go into framing this bank of knowledge, and it should be respected accordingly. Making society compliant with laws, conventions, and best practices standards plays a significant role from the perspective of business and society. As stated by C Rajagopalachari, the first Governor General of free India:
\"Standards are to the industry as Culture is to society.\"
This translates to \"Technological standards help to regulate society in so far as its technical needs are concerned in the same way as cultural standards serve to regulate society in the sociological sense.\"
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