World Standard Day 2007:

Standards sine qua non for a dynamic economy

Standards and the citizen: Contribution to society :

by Indeewara Thilakarathne

Though most of us take standards for granted, a little-thought-of fact is that a world without standards will be dangerous and chaotic. A world without standards is unimaginable and in such a world seemingly ordinary tasks would be extremely dangerous.

The ordinary goods and services from electrical appliances to the newspapers on the kiosk would be out of tune with life. People who would use them would have to take a great risk of being either electrocuted with regard to the use electrical appliances or turning them out to be of no use as newspapers and magazines have no uniform standards that are conversant with population at large.

Therefore, this imaginary scenario would strike the home truth that standards are essential for an orderly society to flourish inter-provincial, international and even in global trade.

Standard good and services will dramatically improve not only trade and commerce between nations but also the quality of life. Standards are omnipresent from the loaf of bread to the newspapers and magazines and even with regard to seemingly insignificant articles such as paper and disposable packaging materials.

This year's World Standard Day which falls on October 14, focuses on the issues under the theme of 'Standards and the citizen: contributing to, society and considers the importance of standards in day-to-day lives. Significantly, attention will also be focused on how standards would help open up markets, ensure environment protection and dramatically improve safety, health and access to information and knowledge.

According to Doris Leuthard, Swiss Minister of Economy, International Standards serves as a bridge between an innovation and its practical application on an industrial basis. He further pointed out that standards have positive stimulus effect on innovation and that the spread of innovation through application of standards assumes an importance especially in the information society.

In essence, it is the standards that determine vital factors of consumer goods and industrial raw materials including those of safety, uniformity (standards enables consumers to use goods anywhere in the world with the same quality) and universal accessibility.

One of the salient features of the international standards is the protection of consumers and their citizen rights. In fact, this year's theme for the World Standard Day emphasises the importance of citizen rights, and to meet their obligations in the global village.

Among the new areas that ISO embarks on this year, are Societal Security, protection of e-consumers and Management system standards which can play vital role in formulating better regulations.

How standards help economic growth

As the international and local standards guarantee quality of the services and raw material and also the finish products, it greatly helps in opening up new markets even for developing countries.

A standard such as ISO 9001 guarantees the quality, safety and accessibility of raw materials and also industrial output while enhancing efficiency at every level of the production process.

On the other hand standardisation of raw materials will contribute immensely to the production of quality goods. This will also improve technical know-how throughout the production process from raw material to packaging and importing of goods.

From the point of consumers, standards protect their rights to access and consume quality goods that are also healthy. Hygienic standards of food items on the selves of supermarkets which are taken for granted, have been guaranteed as a result of numerous standards and regulations such as the marking the date of production and date of expiry on them.

The SLS sign is a kind of certification issued by Sri Lanka Standard Institute to number of classified goods. Sri Lanka Standard Institute established in 1964 as Bureau of Ceylon Standards (BCS) by an Act of Parliament to function as the National Standards Body, has produced over 1250 Sri Lankan Standards relating to products, commodities, material, processes and practices.

In addition, it has imposed mandatory standards on a number of imported goods including food item to ensure quality of the good and safety of the consumers.

Setting standards in every sphere of human activity is a vital ingredient for an orderly and disciplined society. Together with standards comes efficiency, higher quality both in goods and services and much-needed professionalism and accountability.

Especially in the spheres of industries and information technology, setting standards will not only improve efficiency and productivity but also help secure potential export markets and building up international brand names for Sri Lankan products.

Stiff competition in the world market, on the other hand, brings about innovations from environment-friendly low emission vehicles, use of alternative energy sources to organic food and bio-degradable packaging materials.

Mandatory standards worldwide proved an effective anti-dote for seemingly intractable issues such as global warming and depleting of the ozone layer. The issue of depleting of the ozone layer was successfully dealt with mandatory standards imposed on products that used to emit toxic gases such as CFC.

This, in turn, paved the way for the emergence of CFC free technologies and consumer durables like CFC free refrigerators and small and large scale air conditioners.

Introduction of mandatory standards especially on new areas such as e-commerce, assembling computers and the internet would streamline the diverse processes as well as infuse healthy and transparent business practices.

Sri Lanka has a long way to go in imposing and implementing International and local standards on every sphere of public life in order to ensure quality, efficiency and safety of goods and services.

Maintaining and setting up standards are essential at this particular juncture and an important aspect and responsibility of the government for a vibrant economy.

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