Development Stages of Standards

Every Organization needs some Standards to manufacture there goods and services in way that it could be used and switched between various different providers and thus provides its users to choose the best for them without facing any vendor lock-in type issues. But these Standards are not easily made.

Standards are made through various stages of development. When an organization develop standards that may be used openly, it is common to have formal rules published regarding the process. Though it can be tedious and lengthy process, formal standard setting is essential for developing new technologies.

Standards that are created through standards organizations lead to improved product quality, ensured interoperability of competitors’ products, and they provide technological baseline for future research and product development. Some of the benefits for consumers includes, increased innovation, multiple market participants, reduced production costs, product interchangeability.

Let’s look for various development stages involved in developing standard.

• Stage 1: Proposal Stage –
  This is initial stage where need for new standard is assessed. After this Technical committee votes whether standard is actually needed or not. Once the vote is in favor, project leader is appointed by the Technical committee itself, who will look forward for next stages.
• Stage 2: Preparatory stage –
  The Project leader elected will now starts preparation of Standard draft. The draft is altered many times until the working group is satisfied. After approval of all members in working group, draft is made and submitted to ISO Central Secretariat.
• Stage 3: Committee stage –
  Once the draft is available it’s registered by ISO Central Secretariat. It is scrutinized and voted by Technical committee (TC) /Subcommittee (SC) for majority. If the majority is in favor, an agreement is made. Once an agreement has been attained, text is finalized for submission as Draft International Standard (DIS). If the technical committee votes against favor of standard, then draft is rejected and send back to working group for further iteration.
• Stage 4: Enquiry stage –
  Once the vote is in favor and the Draft International Standard (DIS) is made, it is then circulated to all ISO members for voting and comments within a period of 5 months. If two third of majority are favoring draft then a final draft international standard (FDIS) is prepared. If draft fails to attain two third of majority then, it’s sent back to technical committee to further study.
• Stage 5: Approval stage –
  After The final draft international standard is made, it is circulated to all ISO members for final acceptance within 2 months. If any technical comments are received during this stage, they are no longer considered in this stage but will be registered for consideration for next revision. If acceptance is less than two third standard is referred back to technical committee.
• Stage 6: Publication stage –
  Once a final draft International Standard has been approved, only minimal editorial changes will be considered and changed. The final text is sent to the ISO Central Secretariat which publishes the International Standard.

Development Stages of Standard

During the development of Standard there are various drivers for its adoption. Some of which are :

• Drivers for Adoption –
  Network Effects: In Economics, term network effect is effect that one user of goods or service has on the value of that product to other people. When network effects are present, value of goods or service increases as number of users grows.
• Lowers Costs –
  One of the challenges that most organizations face today is procurement and maintenance costs of single vendor products. Because open standards prevents vendor lock-in by making specifications available at a nominal prices, more vendors come forward and bid for projects offering competitive prices.
• Impending Benefits –
  The compelling benefits of adopting open standards are numerous. Primarily, interoperability between discrete systems and preventing vendor lock-in attracts the businesses and governments to adopt open standards.