Anatomy of a Standard Transcript

Transcription

1 Anatomy of a Standard Transcript Maddie: Hi everyone! Throughout this joint project, Eli, Christina, & I all had to use technical standards to make sure our products met the necessary requirements & specifications, our systems were safe, & overall everything functioned appropriately. But, what exactly IS a standard, when it comes down to it? It s a pretty dense document packed-full of information! So much so I had to ask myself, is there an easy way to make sense of it all, or at least to hone in on the parts we need to use in our project? There are a lot of sections, and subsections, and appendices, but what on earth do they all mean? What should we pay attention to so we know if this standard has ANYTHING to do with our project? Technical standards are challenging to work with, especially for new interns. They have a very specific purpose, which was very helpful in guiding our work. So we know that our products are safe, reliable, and can work with other components of the car we re designing for. Although there is not one standard format for standards - believe it or not! - they tend to have a similar structure, regardless of which organization produced them - thank goodness! Sometimes you have to understand what term they are using for a particular concept in your standard. Unfortunately, not every standard will have all the sections I will be talking about, or maybe they appear in a slightly different order. In a minute, I ll walk you through the important parts of a standard using a fun, imaginary example. This sample standard I call SHU 12.2, Standard Tests for Properly Tied Shoes. Also, you can take a look at the Anatomy of a Standard Handout document to use as a reference in understanding the different parts of a standard in the future. I like this document because it gives you a little information about what you can typically find in each section. As I go through this sample standard, I ll share some general suggestions on how to navigate standards just some hints I picked up from my co-workers at Stall Systems on how to best work your way through the documents, because they can be tricky!. Sometimes it is hard to figure out whether a standard is relevant for a project, they are very complex documents that take quite a bit of time to read through & make sense of them. 1

2 Instead of reading the document from top to bottom, it is best to focus on the sections that will help you quickly determine whether the standard is relevant and useful for your project. After reading each section, you should ask yourself, does this standard seem to be relevant? Do I need to continue reading, or should I move on to another standard? Let s look at the fun sample standard. SHU 12.2 describes a standard test for properly tied shoes. Take a couple of minutes and skim the Anatomy of a Standard Handout. What do you think is the first section you should read? The Scope section is the best place to start. It looks a lot like the abstract of a journal article, providing a brief overview of the standard. It describes the purpose and primary use of the standard, how it interacts with other standards, and the major considerations or concerns to think about when using the standard. However, it doesn t generally provide you enough information to determine whether the standard is right for you, instead, you have to keep going on your reading path. Take our sample scope for example, it states, Contains test method & criteria for a well-tied shoe, for any occasion. This doesn t necessarily tell us everything we want or need to know about this particular standard. Let s keep moving. The next stop would be the Definitions/Terminology section. There are usually terms that you might not be sure what they mean, or sometimes they are used to mean something different from what you re used to. Take the word aglet did you know the little plastic doo-hicky on the end of a shoelace has a name?! Me neither! It s called an aglet. The Definitions section helps clarify what the key concepts or terms in the standards really mean. Sometimes this section even has references that are terminology standards. They define terms for a whole class of standards. Understanding the terms used in the standard is important. If you think they are talking about one thing, and they really mean something else, you can get into a lot of trouble. 2

3 Once you ve determined that you and the standard are speaking the same language with regard to key concepts or terms, the next step is to figure out whether you re working on the same problem. Which leads to the Conditions for Use section. The Conditions for Use indicate what environments the product should be used in or designed to perform in. This section helps us determine if the standard was made for a special situation, like high altitude, a marine environment, what temperature range something should be used in, etc. Like with our shoe standard, you can see it only applies to wearing shoes on land, not underwater. If the standard does not cover the conditions you will be operating in, you may need to search for a different standard. Once you have determined what the standard is about, and where it can be used, the next stop are the actual Requirements that you need to meet to be compliant with the standard. This is the real moment of truth for the standard, when you see what performance or design specifications are required in order to say you meet the standard. If you want that seal of approval that your product is compliant, this is where that information is. It will also tell you the details, so if you have a component that meets the specs, you know it will perform in a certain way in your design. So, you don t have to re-invent components that are already available in the market. You can also compare the requirements of the standard with your project s requirements to see whether items meeting the standard are sufficient to do what you need in your project. Once you have determined that the requirements are appropriate for your design, the last major section is the Tests section, which tells you how exactly to measure whether your design meets the requirements. If people measure strength or toughness of an object and they are using different definitions for those concepts it would be hard to figure out whether their toughness is the same as our toughness. So, the test methods are incredibly important, so that we all get the same answers when we do the same tests on the same objects. For example, the tests methods of the sample standard are very specific on the different tests to tie shoes, from the amount of strength applied, to the equal length of the shoelace one should have before tying a shoe. It s important to read the Test section to understand how a quantity is measured, as well as to actually allow us to run the tests and make measurements ourselves. 3

4 Dr Smarty: Maddie, what is another way the Test section helped you while working on your project? Maddie: Oh yeah! I discovered the Test section can also help to determine whether the company you work for has the equipment you need to run the tests. If not, you can tell your boss what they need to buy, or maybe have to send out to a lab, for testing. Maddie: So, those are the primary sections of a standard to read first. After reading a section, I discovered, if you find the standard doesn t seem to be appropriate - just stop reading! Go find another one! If that standard does seem promising, you could continue and take a look at a couple other sections. For example the Normative References/Referenced Documents. The referenced standards are ones you need to consult to carry out this standard. Sometimes people discover one of those referenced standards actually better meets their needs than the original one they were considering. The referenced standards might contain crucial information, key definitions, or other details of the testing process that might be what you were actually looking for, rather than a standard that applies that testing process to a particular situation. Normative is kind of a weird term that shows up in standards a lot, but basically means required. You can see this especially in the Annexes, which are typically appendices of the standard. There are two kinds of Annexes, Informative and Normative. Informative Annexes tend to give advice, background, or guidance on how the standard evolved or came about, or what situations the standard is used in. They provide information that is good to know when working with the standard. Normative Annexes, on the other hand, contain supplementary information that is required to be incorporated into your process for meeting the standard. A Normative Annex might contain details of a particular procedure that is only briefly described in the Requirements or Tests section of the standard. In the shoe example, you can see Annex C is a normative annex. When you have decided to use a standard, it is important to actually read through all the sections, so that you know exactly what you need to do, and what not to do, but also if there are any other details you need to worry about. 4

5 For example, a standard might also include a Markings section, which tells you specifically how you should label your product. It might indicate what input power supply is required, or unambiguously what performance standard your product meets. You can see the shoe standard has a marking requirement. Dr. Smarty: Wow Maddie! Wonderful presentation. Working your way through the technical language and organization of a standard is challenging, but now that we all know about the parts of a standard, it is not so intimidating. Use the strategy for reading a standard Maddie has presented to you to determine whether the standard is important to your product and to help work your way through the documents. It is well worth the time investment to make sure your product not only works appropriately, and to a certain level of quality, but also that it can work with other products seamlessly to do more complex operations. 5