Standardization is high on the agenda for many companies. If you ask a group of people whether they have a standard within their organization, you often get surprising results. A number of people raise their hands, others we don't see. Not surprising, because a standard is a broad concept. “The only good standard we know is under a bicycle” or “Our most recently completed projects are our standard”, we regularly hear from project managers and engineers. Recognizable?
When we talk about Industrial Automation, we quickly think of machine builders, system integrators and end customers. One of the challenges that we see everywhere in this market is project pressure. In busy times, this often takes precedence over achieving a good standard. Logical given the enormous time pressure on projects. The project data is often incomplete at the start of the project, but good quality is expected by the deadline.
Definition of a standard
A standard is often associated with something that is rigid, cumbersome and bureaucratic. The word 'standard' or 'standardization' has many definitions. For the industry we could define a standard as 'recognized agreements about products, specifications and documents'. The standard we have in mind is a means to create uniformity. Examples of this are uniform descriptions, product definitions, good tag coding, typicals per discipline (a piece of project documentation with variables), article data, structure of software and/or hardware, not to mention the surrounding process. Within the industry we regularly hear terms such as 'company standard, project standard and customer standard'. Standardization is always a good idea, but the degree of investment in a standard varies. How much time and energy standardization costs depends on, for example, the number of objects and the structure of the standard.
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Advantages and disadvantages of a good standard
A good standard has many advantages. We are thinking of:
Securing knowledge
There is a major shortage of technical specialists and we are dealing with an aging population in the technical world. Knowledge is in the minds of experienced employees. It is very important to safeguard this knowledge in a standard that is available to other employees. This also makes it possible to train new colleagues more quickly and deploy additional capacity.
Quality gain (or reduction of failure costs)
Names, typicals, documents, reports and other important matters are coordinated and recorded in advance. At the start of a project, you know the end result in advance, regardless of which engineer worked on it. If it comes out wrong once, it will come out wrong everywhere. If you record it properly at the front, this guarantees good quality and clear information and project documentation. Uniformity and recognizability of documents and names often produce happy faces.
Time saving
A good standard saves time. At the start of a project, it is much easier to define what information needs exist within a discipline. The engineer is busy collecting the data and can further focus on specials. Because there are fewer uncertainties, it is also easier to plan. The same number of people do more work. The division of tasks can also take place more efficiently.
Let the project engineer engineer again
Using a standard requires less attention from the project engineer. This especially applies to objects that occur regularly and are seen as a piece of cake. After all, once well defined, always the same. This gives the engineer more time to think about the technical solution for the more complex items in his project. He can therefore start working on these issues much earlier in his project, which ultimately results in a better thought-out design.
Does a standard only have advantages? The word standardize often also evokes less positive energy. Understandable, if you consider that flexibility and choice are compromised. However, a standard will have to move with the times, so we can also speak of a dynamic standard or the creation of uniformity. A standard is a great goal, but remember that there are many team members who influence a standard. That is precisely where the challenge lies. After all, the team determines success.
First standardize, then automate
To arrive at a good standard, many choices have to be made. This often causes different teams to talk to each other, creating healthy discussions that have not previously been had. Standardization requires coordination across the various disciplines. A standard is not a law, but a means to achieve uniformity. This means you remain flexible to a limited extent. It is important to start standardizing before anchoring or automating the standard and the process. Forming a good (multidisciplinary) standard takes much more time than automating it. We will tell you more about this in one of our next blogs.
Are you considering starting a standardization process for one or more disciplines? We regularly give webinars on this topic. Interesting? Please join us!
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