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RMSS: About Standardisation
When to standardise, when not to standardise

The USA Defence Standardisation Programme issues a workbook that supplies guidance to users on how to identify opportunities for standardisation. Conditions that potentially do not justify standardisation are also discussed.

Following are some criteria from the workbook that can be used in order to determine whether standarisation should be considered or not:

When to standardise, when not to standardise

When to standardise
If the answer is “yes” to any of these questions, consideration should be given to standardise:

Is physical uniformity a minimum essential requirement?
Examples of items for which physical uniformity of appearance is essential are military uniforms, medals, and flags.

Is uniform configuration necessary for ease of operation or safety?
For example, a control panel or avionics suite may need to be standardised to enhance the ability of the user to access information and respond as quickly and easily as possible under pressure.

Must form, fit, function, or interface be defined to permit interoperability or connectivity between discrete items?
If an item must communicate or link in operation with other items, standardisation is needed to ensure the linkage is accurate and smooth and does not degrade performance of the total system. Cargo tie-down hooks on vehicles to allow transport in cargo aircraft is an example. Protocols for communication hardware or software are other examples.

Will the item be used in a variety of applications?
If an item will be used in multiple applications, it is necessary to standardise on a common set of physical and performance characteristics that will satisfy the multiple uses (eg CD-ROM systems, tape recorder cassettes that can be used in telephone answering machines also, etc).

Must form, fit, function, or interface be identical to replace or substitute for an equivalent item (interchangeability, substitutability)?
If an item will be used as a replacement for another item, standardisation is required to ensure the item fits and works to an acceptable level of performance. Tyres and filters are items that may be designated as replacement items for systems other than those for which they were originally designed to operate.

Are there unique environmental requirements, such as radiation hardness, vibration, shock, extended temperature range?
If definition of unique environmental requirements could be beneficial as design input for a variety of applications, standardisation should be considered.

Will there be economies of scale (consolidated buys)?
Consolidated procurement of relatively large quantities of an item can result in a significant reduction in purchasing costs. This consolidation is made possible by standardisation - development of a common set of characteristics that satisfies the needs of multiple users.

Are there stocking and storage considerations (item will be in inventory)?
Reducing the variations of items stored through standardisation may be necessary to simplify and to minimize the cost of storage and distribution. The "single-fuel on the battlefield" standardisation effort is an example of standardisation as an operational requirement to improve the efficiency of storing and distributing fuel.

Would training for operation, maintenance, or repair be improved by standardisation?
For items that are difficult or complex to operate, maintain or repair, it may be necessary to standardise to make training for operation, maintenance and repair easier and safer.

Would R&D costs, engineering time or procurement time be reduced?
For example, it may be worth standardising on items that require significant R&D investment and can be used across systems, such as an engine. Likewise developing a standardisation document for items that are purchased frequently and used by multiple users avoids the expenditure of engineering and procurement time in the development of multiple purchase descriptions.

Is high quality or reliability required?
If item failure may cause mission failure or loss of life, or if items are inaccessible for repair, standardisation may be needed to ensure a high level of quality or reliability.

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When not to standardise
If the answer is “yes” to any of these questions, potential for standardisation is probably limited:

Is the technology unstable? Is it preferable not to freeze design in order to take advantage of technological advances?
It may not be practical or desirable to standardise on a set of items if the technology involved is rapidly evolving, and acquiring the state of the art technology is desirable or items go out of production after a short period of time. On the other hand, it may be beneficial to standardise on interfaces or protocols for these types of items. For example, under the open systems initiative, you would not want to standardise on the equipment, but you do want to standardise on the information architecture and the cable attachments to permit interfacing with existing equipment. The tremendous flexibility offered by the open systems approach is only possible by having a standardised "plug and play" capability among the physical and electronic inter faces, while still permitting equipment upgrades to keep pace with technological advances by not standardising on the internal parts of the equipment.

Is the primary goal to satisfy customer preferences?
If customers can and do turn easily to other sources when their specific preferences are not honoured, it may not be practical to standardise at more than a very generic level. Some examples are tools, food products and medical equipment. While it may be possible to buy standardised products to meet the customer's requirements, customer preference for specific brand items may be the overriding consideration.

Will standardisation unacceptably inhibit design flexibility and innovation?
If a primary goal of an acquisition is to allow the developer maximum design flexibility and innovation, standardisation is not appropriate.

Is the item a "stand alone" end item or a replaceable unit, with only human interface?
If an entire unit may be economically replaced without recourse to other than civilian repair, standardisation may be unnecessary. Items such as flashlights, watches, forklift trucks and computers are examples.

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