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February 17, 1997

Signals & Noise

The standards dilemma

Re: "High acceptance means low innovation" (EDN, Nov 21, 1996, pg 11):

Standards have always created a dilemma for me. As a consumer, I want them; as an engineer, I hate them. When designing something, I want to be able to use components from various sources--knowing any one of them will equally fit the application. As an innovator, I dislike the obedience that standards exact. They become claustrophobic when you attempt to extend the range of a product's utility.

Sometimes, however, a new standard is necessary. It took years of much imbroglio to arrive at a color-TV standard compatible with monochromatic television. Finally, there was an NTSC standard for color. FM radio had to burst out of the AM standard before it could go on the market. Now, every broadcast radio has to meet standards for both AM and FM transmission. Long-playing records came out with a 331/3-rpm standard, but each record producer decided to use a different audio-frequency roll-off within the audible band. This action required a preamp capable of switching to whichever-band roll-off the record you were playing required. It would have been better if the producers all used the same roll-off--or would it?

It seems apropos to use standards when it comes to interfacing different manufactured commodities; nevertheless, some of them are quite unnecessary. ISO 9000 is one of these unnecessary standards.

Quality has no standard. It never has, and it never will. Quality is a state of mind that varies from individual to individual. If there is anything adequate to define quality, it is the market that drives it. Just as one state of mind decides what kind of quality to purchase, a different state of mind decides what kind of quality to dispense. The marketplace becomes the wherewithal that equalizes quality.

An interface is not a quality but a necessity. Quality, price, availability, and service are all variables setting the terms for commercial exchange. Standardizing any one of these things is an intrusion into a free-market economy. Without this flexibility, commerce would become a stagnant bureaucracy, and enterprise would wither into oblivion.

Roy L Ruth
Senior Engineer
Dotronix Inc
Eau Claire, WI

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