From the Director's Desk:

Standards and standardization are the foundation stones on which our industrial society was built. Without standards to regulate the daily exchange of goods and services the whole structure would crumble. Standards to ensure interchangeability of parts, standards for safety, standards for health care, standards for performance, standards for date marking and so on - the list is endless.

Standards play and important role in trade and commerce within and between all countries of the world. These sstandards are developed by many bodies at sub-national, national, regional and international levels, and a significant number of which prepare their documents by a consensus process.

Standardization was viewed initially as being limited to enginerring industries, nothing could be further from the truth. Engineering industries, particularly those involved with high volume production were amongst the first to recognize the value of standardization, but it is certainly not their exclusive domain. Agriculture, commerce, transport, building, food, forestry, textile, chemicals, science, education and, in more recent times, the service industry - e.g. hospitals, hotels are all areas where standardization can be used as a management tool to improve productivity.

We are surrounded by standards of all types, covering virtually every aspect of our lives, but we are hardly ever conscious that they exist. Standards make an early start in affecting our day. First thing in the morning as we stumble into the bath and prepare to brush our, standards are staring us in the face there is and exhaustive standard for toothbrushes. There is another for toothpaste which goes to extraordinary lengths to specify the tube and its contents.

All situations involving standards are essentially progressive as they are based on technical, economic and social innovations which are agents of progress in the widest sense. The major role that standards play has changed, moving away from industrial rationalization and into the realm of management of quality systems, which have become essential due to the increased variety of goods and services on offer. The latest leading edge for standardization is cyberspace. The Internet is fast becoming an infrastructure and the search for working order is clearly apparent.

Standardization in services is also constantly increasing in importance. It primarily intends to provide tools for "non-material" economic activities. The ultimate challenge facing standardization for the future can be found in information technology. As we all know thes field is undergoing its own industrial revolution as the days of centralizes unilateral, and exclusive information access are numbered and are giving way to global "shared" information access - Internet.

Most significantly standards:

• improve the quality of life, safety, health, and environmental protection;
• economize energy and materials used in manufacturing and trading goods;
• foster clear and non-ambiguous communication among all the parties concerned.

As the World Standards Day 1998 message clearly states "the truth is that a day without standards is inconceivable".

Click below to view one of our annual issues:

_-_ _-_ _-_ _-_