Standards Management as a Key to Success for India’s Manufacturers

India’s economy has seen a remarkable expansion over the past decade, driven by the rise of an information technology industry that now is viewed as world-class. More recently, as export-oriented manufacturers have taken advantage of the nation’s technically skilled workforce, India’s manufacturing sector has begun to experience significant growth as well.. India’s success in becoming a manufacturing power, however, will depend on whether its companies successfully embrace the use of industry standards and effective standards management.

The Role of Standards
Standards give businesses a basis to support claims of quality when working to gain new customers in both domestic and global markets. Standards for this purpose come from international standards development organizations (SDOs) or from SDOs specific to the market being entered. Standards provide a level playing field and reduce uncertainty for both India-based and foreign businesses. Standards also help companies meet goals around time to market, consistent supply, interoperability, and performance requirements. Many SDOs provide standards collections that are likely to be of interest to Indian companies manufacturing parts for export or for use with components imported for assembly within India.

These SDOs include:

• ABMA – American Bearing Manufacturers Association
• AGMA – American Gear Manufacturers Association
• AIA – Aerospace Industries Association
• API – American Petroleum Institute
• ASME – American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• ASME BPVC – Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code
• ASTM International
• AWS – American Welding Society
• IEC – International Electrotechnical Commission
• IEEE – Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
• NEMA – National Electrical Manufacturers Association
• SAE International
• UL – Underwriters Laboratories

Export-oriented companies in India must also be cognizant of standards specific to the markets they are targeting. For example, the European Union has been a major export market for India. Exporters to the European Union need to be aware of the many national and non-governmental SDOs and their particular jurisdictions, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the British Standards Institution (BSI) and many others.

Creating and Maintaining a Standards Library
Standards are often available from SDOs as either a hardcopy or electronically. Some companies still maintain a hardcopy library, but the higher levels of risk associated with hardcopies has prompted many organizations to move to using an online system that enables a higher level of standards management.

With hardcopies, engineers and other staff must spend considerable amounts of time leafing through binders of standards to locate needed information. Multiple hardcopies are needed if the personnel requiring access are not all in the same location. In addition, standards are frequently revised, and maintaining multiple hardcopies can be expensive, time consuming, and prone to errors.

The use of an online standards management system, with an Internet-based content library managed by a third-party, provides many benefits over a hard copy library. Sophisticated search capabilities in an online system significantly reduce the time needed for locating a needed standard or reviewing a large set of standards. An advanced standards management system also can automatically alert users of recent updates upon login or via email. Furthermore, project teams can collaborate around the same standard or group of standards, providing for “one version of the truth.”

Getting Started
It is important to understand that successful standards management capable of driving global business success is not simply a matter of buying hard copy or digital documents at the lowest unit cost. India’s most successful manufacturers will be those that embrace robust tools and work with a trusted, experienced partner like IHS to establish effective standards management.

For India’s manufacturers, standards management can represent a significant opportunity to lower costs, reduce risk, and improve market performance simply through better use of tools and techniques to manage the standards they already use.

Companies looking to embrace standards management can follow three simple steps to seize this opportunity:

1. First, establish a formal priority around standards management, enlisting executive sponsorship to drive this initiative within the organization, sell the importance of standards management to other functions or business units, and endorse funding of the project at an adequate level.

2. Next, engage internal specialists and external experts like IHS to analyze current use, inventory your current library of standards, and understand how staff members access standards, as well as the current and future needs for standards within the company.

3. Finally, the road to better standards management will involve eliminating paper from the process, digitizing and automating access at the desktop or mobile device level from a single reliable source, and investing in a corporate-wide standards management tool suited to the requirements of your company and its industry.

Improved standards management is clearly a competitive weapon that should be in the arsenal of every Indian manufacturer with global ambitions, and the time to get started on effective standards management is today!

For more information,
IHS India (Mumbai) office
Tel: +91 22 4090 7129
Web: www.ihs.com