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RMSS: About Standardisation
Different types of standardisation activity

The term standardisation sometimes causes confusion as it is neither a discipline nor a process in itself. It is probably more likely to be a generic concept that only fully manifests itself once management elements have been defined to give meaning to the aims and objectives (or intended outcomes) of any specific standardisation action. This can vary greatly from user to user.

Nevertheless, everyone knows when things are not standardised – and unfortunately this is often only recognised once problems are being experienced due to lack of interchangeability, excessive varieties, etc. Also, when there is sufficient standardisation, it is often not valued enough, because of the fact that it (standardisation) is one of those things that are easily taken for granted.

Many standardisation bodies are concerned with only one aspect of standardisation – eg standards development. In the military business, however, standardisation is achieved by focussing its efforts in a variety of ways. A few thoughts on some of these elements are discussed:

Standards Development
Standards development is perhaps one of the more familiar forms of Standardisation activity. This is because all major Standardisation bodies actively manage their intellectual business by way of “Standards”. Standards are technical or other documents that usually come in paper copy or electronic format, and are in fact the products of their Standardisation efforts.

The Standards development process occurs through committees and sub-committees and participation at these committees is usually on a voluntary basis. Participants are not directly paid for their contributions and inputs, but it is presumed that compensation for their inputs will be by way of direct and indirect benefits their industry will most likely receive after the Standard has finally been promulgated and implemented. This is because of the fact that their (the industry or group which they represent) preferences will have been adequately debated, and are sufficiently included in the final product – ie the Standard.

Standards development activity can occur on various levels and its basis can be wide or narrow, depending upon the type of business or the focus of interest, eg:

• Military, non-Military;
• Commercial, non-Commercial;
• Regulatory, Mandatory, Voluntary;
• National, International, Government;
• Sector, Region, Company, Industry, Professional body, etc.

Part of the management process of a standards development function involves also the issuing, safekeeping, updating, cancellation and other configuration control issues. It also involves the obligation towards adherence to intellectual property right regulations and -laws – the standards development body’s own as well as that of external sources which may be relevant or applicable.

Parts Management
The USA DOD has, as part of its Standardisation Programme, a Parts Management Programme (PMP) which is described in Mil-Hdbk-512, the purpose of which is described as follows:

“To provide guidance for implementing an effective PMP on DOD, industry and commercial acquisitions. The guidance in this document supports acquisition strategies and systems engineering practices of the DOD. Mil-Hdbk-512 provides performance based parts management process guidance which is intended to be adapted to individual programme needs and which provides appropriate latitude for innovative approaches and design solutions by the contractors.”

The objectives and benefits of the PMP are said to be to “reduce total cost of ownership and increase logistic readiness, and are achieved through:

• Promoting interoperability;
• Enhancing the interchangeability, reliability and availability of parts;
• Minimizing diminishing source impacts and parts obsolescence;
• Assisting in meeting end item performance;
• Assisting with parts selection and qualification procedures;
• Becoming compatible with the business environment and trends;
• Minimizing the proliferation of parts and drawings through standardisation.”

It is also said that “the most effective PMPs are implemented during the initial contract and contract review process. Therefore, it is imperative that the standards engineer or individual responsible for parts management be involved up front so that all areas where parts management may be impacted can be addressed.”

Parts Management is implemented through a Parts Management Programme Plan that communicates how the parts management process is to be conducted, and which delineates management structure, responsibilities, procedures and controls. Management of the Parts Management Programme Plan occurs via an Integrated Project Team (IPT).

Item Reduction
Item reduction is essentially a cleaning out of unnecessary items that are referenced or stored in the provisioning system. An item could become “unnecessary” because of different reasons, eg it could have been replaced with another similar item, possibly supplied by another supplier at a better price. Or the item could have become obsolete because of the phasing out of certain equipment and systems, or because of duplicate items that may be the result of proliferation over a long period of time. Item reduction is a deliberate effort to continuously attempt to reduce unnecessary varieties.

As with Parts Management the USA DOD system has a well-structured management system called the Item Reduction Programme (IRP), and which has the capability and capacity to conduct Item Reduction Studies on a continuous basis. The IRP is described as follows:

“The goal of the Item Reduction Programme is to reduce to the maximum extent possible the number of sizes and kinds of items assigned National Stock Numbers (NSN’s) in the DOD supply system. All (NSNs) recorded in the Federal Logistics Information Services (FLIS) file shall be assigned an Item Standardisation Code (ISC). The ISC denotes that an item is, or is not authorized for acquisition. The formal process that precedes the assigning of an ISC, is the Item Reduction Study (IRS)”. The IRS process includes determining where there are a great number of generally similar items that lend themselves to grouping by item names, item characteristics such as sizes, material, etc. Item Reduction is essentially a sorting out of items of supply to separate items currently in the supply system that are to be retained for stock purposes, from the items not to be acquired for continued supply support.

Standardisation of Standards, Documents formats and Management Systems
A. Documents and Document formats
Some Defence Organisations regard it as important to also, as part of the formal Standardisation processes, pay particular attention to Standardised document format requirements and -configuration control procedures, such that there is a general approach towards uniform and consistent methods of work in all areas, divisions and acquisition categories.

It is argued that standardisation in this area helps to “instil discipline in the process and provides both the validation and approval authorities and the acquisition management system with efficient and consistent information to use in reviews, certifications, and decision deliberations”.

B. Order of preference wrt the use of Standards and specifications (ie “Standardised” Standards)
Military organizations in developed countries have strict policies that prescribe the order of preference related to the use of standards and specifications. eg the UK Department of Defence Standardisation organization (DStan) sets out its policy for the selection and use of standards for defence procurement in its Policy document.

Lack of strict policy in this regard has the potential of unnecessary proliferation in all areas, eg logistical system, design, engineering processes, etc, especially in the current era of oversupply of information.

C. Standardisation of management systems
Many organizations have already experienced substantial benefits by following the world-wide trend to restructure their management systems and -processes to comply with the ISO 9000 quality standards. Key to this is the realisation that a standardised, quality oriented methodology is necessary to manage the complicated variables that are prevalent in the current business environment – more so because of the different expectations and interpretations as to what constitute acceptable product and service quality.