Companies across the nation rely on standards and conformance to increase efficiency, reduce cost, and boost market access for their products and services. Here are a few examples:

The Virginia class attack submarine is one of the most powerful and complex naval combatants ever created. But firepower and enhanced stealth were not the only considerations facing the U.S. Navy when it needed to update the fleet with the post-Cold War security environment in mind. The cost of building nuclear powered submarines is vast, each ship running into the billions of dollars. At the same time, budgetary pressures are significant. Obviously, developing new efficiencies in design, production, and ongoing maintenance offers the potential for tremendous cost savings on such large-scale projects.

Historically, nuclear submarine shipbuilding development and construction focused on custom designs because of the relatively limited number of ships being built in this category. Over time, this practice resulted in a proliferation of functionally similar or nearly identical parts and specifications. In a major cooperative initiative, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Navy, the industrial shipbuilding community, and academia identified two key areas to improve: parts standardization and process standardization.

The bottom line: over the life of the Virginia class program, an investment of $27 million in parts standardization is projected to lead to $789 million in cost avoidance. The number of procured parts was reduced by 60 percent. The USS Virginia lead ship was launched ahead of her threshold delivery requirement determined ten years earlier. Moreover, the USS Virginia is already showing a marked improvement in crew readiness and cost-effective onboard parts support.

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ASME (the American Society of Mechanical Engineers) has developed codes, standards and conformity assessment programs for over 125 years to guide engineers and regulators in creating more efficient and safer production and work environments. One code in particular, the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel (BPV) Code, is often utilized at nuclear power plants and contributes to safer, cleaner and more profitable energy production. By following the ASME BPV Code, many companies, including Dominion Resources, have saved millions of dollars by enhancing safety protocols and keeping their equipment running at high efficiencies.

One of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy, Dominion has saved tens of millions of dollars in avoiding unwanted repairs, time delays, outages, and lost revenue by implementing Section XI of the ASME BPV Code, which focuses on in-service inspection of nuclear power plant components. And every ten years Dominion saves $2.6 million from a nuclear safety innovation called Risk-Informed ISI that was generated for the code specific to piping welds. Section XI has changed the way inspections are performed on piping welds, making the process more efficient and less time consuming. This has not only saved Dominion millions of dollars, but has enhanced productivity and safety throughout the nuclear industry.

Dominion has seen significant cost savings, increased efficiencies, and improved safety measures through its use of the ASME BPV code. By following these requirements and guidelines, Dominion is able to help keep their employees safe and provide a more efficient work environment.

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While our products feature unique components that differentiate us from our competitors, we also rely on enabling components like fittings and fasteners that can be produced to standards and be available “off the shelf.”

Contributing our knowledge to develop these standards made good sense. The more standardized components we can use to deliver reliable functionality, the less we, and our customers, have to pay.

The Army Materiel Command (AMC) develops, acquires, maintains, and distributes materiels needed by warfighters from idea to factory to foxhole, including meals, uniforms, ammunition, communications, and weapons systems.

In 2007, a central library was created to consolidate all standards-related information to be managed by a single office and accessible to the entire AMC enterprise through a web-based portal, supporting a buy once but use often approach to standards and specifications. The program is now serving more than 20,000 engineers and scientists.

Not only are quality, access, and oversight greatly improved, but a substantial $3.5 million per year in cost avoidance is achieved. Furthermore, the significant reduction in cost and the improved management of government-owned intellectual property increased the stability, security, access to, and use of standards-related information across the AMC enterprise. In addition to cutting its costs, AMC cut research time reducing the users’ need for the services of scientists and engineers, an additional cost avoidance of more than $2.5 million per year.

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Aerospace has been at the center of America’s technological leadership for the last century.

Underpinning all these accomplishments is the vast wealth of technical data housed, maintained, and disseminated through standards.

InfoComm International serves the AV communications industry through education, certification, and other activities that enhance the AV industry and foster competent technicians. Through the InfoComm Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) credentialing program, the only AV certification recognized by ANSI and ISO, companies that employ CTS staff can save money on their liability insurance.

While the amount of savings that a company can achieve varies based on the percentage of certified staff and the positions they hold, companies that employ staff with CTS credentials could earn up to a 25% reduction on insurance rates. Because the CTS exam has been recognized as a fair assessment of an individual’s audiovisual knowledge based on peer-developed standards of competencies, insurance companies are willing to extend lower rates to companies who utilize the CTS program.

Investing in the CTS program offers a return on investment when purchasing insurance, and discounted insurance provides further proof that more industries are becoming aware of the benefits and cost savings of credentialing.

According to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), during the 1980s electrical arc faults were associated with more than 40,000 home fires, claiming over 350 lives and causing 1,400 injuries annually. In 1992, the electrotechnical industry developed an Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI) which continuously monitors current flow. They worked with Underwriters Laboratories to publish UL 1699, Standard for Safety of Arc-Fault Circuit-Interrupters, in 1996 which provides testing, performance, and construction requirements for this critical equipment. AFCIs are also a requirement in the National Electrical Code (NEC), the model code for electrical wiring developed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

Standards and conformity assessment activities for AFCIs help protect against hazardous arc faults, saving lives and protecting property nationwide.

South African hotel and entertainment management company Tsogo Sun Group faced the challenge of preparing workers and enhancing facilities for natural or man-made hazards that might arise during the 2010 Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. American National Standard ASIS SPC.1-2009, Organizational Resilience: Security, Preparedness, and Continuity Management Systems - Requirements with Guidance for Use, was chosen as the most comprehensive management systems approach for security, preparedness, response, mitigation, business/operational continuity, and recovery for disruptive incidents resulting in an emergency, crisis, or disaster.

Rather than pursue third-party certification due to time and cost constraints, the hotel group established an internal team to execute rigorous auditing of the implementation of the standard. The team completed the ISO 28000 Lead Auditor Course, the same course required for third-party certification body auditors. After communicating project goals company-wide and soliciting input from employees at all levels of the organization, a six-level phased implementation was coordinated engaging all employees. The phased approach with a framework of steps made implementation more manageable, resulting in maximum buy-in and compliance. The process ensured that gaps were addressed and previous work was integrated into a focused and comprehensive plan for organizational resilience.

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Standards are a vehicle of communication for producers and users. They serve as a common language, defining quality and establishing safety criteria.

Costs are lower if procedures are standardized; training is also simplified.

In the 1970s, hospitals began using computers to process digital medical images. Initially, most devices stored images in a propriety format and transferred these files over an internal network or on removable media. These incompatible systems made images inconsistent and sharing information difficult, expensive, unreliable and inefficient. In order for physicians, hospitals and patients to fully reap the benefits from digital medical images and information, the medical community called for interoperability and a standard method for transmitting medical images and their associated information.

In 1983, the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) formed a joint committee to create a standard method for transmitting medical images and their associated information. Within ten years the standard grew to utilize computer network standards and was renamed Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM). DICOM includes standards not only for images but also for patient records, studies, reports and other data groupings, and has contributed to improvements in image quality and presentation consistency.

The DICOM standard permits the transfer of medical images in a multi-vendor environment; provides a strong base for developing and expanding picture archiving and communication systems; and supports interfacing with medical information systems. DICOM is utilized in virtually every medical profession that uses images including cardiology, dentistry, endoscopy, mammography, ophthalmology, orthopedics, pathology, pediatrics, radiation therapy, radiology, surgery, as well as veterinary applications. As patient information transfers to digital forms, all Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems that include imaging information as part of the patient record will require DICOM.

Ultimately, the benefit falls to the patient. Physicians have better access to images and reports allowing them to make a faster diagnosis, potentially from anywhere in the world. As a result, patients can obtain faster, more effective care.

In March 2003, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) announced its Standards Initiative in response to industry concerns that standards are among the greatest barriers to expanding imports. The DOC estimated that standards-related issues impacted 80% of world commodity trade. Given that the world trade in petroleum was about 44 million barrels per day in 2003, the impact of standards is clear.

In addition, the German National Standards Body (DIN) recently studied the direct economic benefits of standardization. In this study published in 2000, the direct economic benefit of standardization was found to be 1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For the oil and natural gas industry, the estimated capital expenditure, or CAPEX, is between $150-200 billion annually. Using the DIN value, this translates into an annual savings attributed to standardization of $200-$500 million.

Sound technical standards benefit the user, as well as the manufacturer, by improving safety, bringing about economies in production, eliminating misunderstandings between manufacturer and purchaser, and assisting the purchaser in selecting and obtaining the proper product to meet his or her need. In addition, the process of standardization allows manufacturers to come together to reach consensus on the best way to describe a product or system and their performance characteristics.

NEMA product groups devote much of their time, effort, and resources to voluntary standardization activities.

NAVSTAR GPS (Navigation Satellite Timing and Ranging - Global Positioning System), the largest avionics procurement and installation program in the history of the Department of Defense (DoD), illustrates how strategic standardization can have global impact and revolutionize the way the world functions.

By using a standard radio navigation signal and code provided by the Air Force, the U.S. and its allies realized significant economies of scale through buying, leveraging, and lowering total ownership costs, and reducing acquisition costs while supporting interoperability and logistics readiness. GPS transformed military strategy and logistics, affected many commercial industries, and became the worldwide standard for navigation.

Initiated in 1983 and launched in 1989, GPS cost over $12 billion to develop and deploy. The current annual cost for DoD to operate, sustain, and modernize the GPS is about $500 million. However, the cost of strategic standardization that enabled a single technological solution to a shared problem was infinitesimal compared to the benefit. By making the GPS interface standard available to the entire world, the GPS program produced a global economic impact too large to calculate, and total dollar savings unknowable, but the benefits and potential for GPS is infinite.

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Standards have been essential to the growth of photography and imaging, from the first reloadable consumer cameras to the complex graphic workflows of today's commercial printing and publishing industries.

Throughout our history, Kodak has been a leader in developing, adopting, and promoting industry standards to meet the needs and expand the capabilities of our products and services.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council (DFWHC) faced the challenge of linking millions of records from numerous different facilities using various information systems to create a cohesive patient-centric view of information. DFWHC was previously limited to analyzing information at the encounter rather than the patient level. This made it impossible for DFWHC to look at all visits for a single patient within or across entities and limited the ability to analyze data and identify trends.

DFWHC worked in partnership with QuadraMed to implement QuadraMed’s Smart I/X EMPI (enterprise master person index) software for record matching. This resulted in the ability to link inpatient to outpatient hospitalization encounters, link multiple outpatient encounters, calculate readmission rates, link research data to inpatient and outpatient databases, support research activity to improve healthcare delivery, track infections, and develop episodic metrics and analytic capability to evaluate chronic illnesses models.

DFWHC was ultimately able to link 7.4 million records from 136 hospitals, achieving a patient-centric view of inpatient and outpatient clinical information for research and reporting that can be used to evaluate and improve patient safety and care across the region. These advancements have led to the beginning stages of a regional health information exchange (HIE). And because the regional EMPI conforms to Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) profiles, which organize and leverage the integration capabilities that can be achieved by coordinated implementation of communication standards, it can be expanded to manage a future HIE.

Managing the business of standards helps avoid the heavy start up and recovery costs to repair or replace an [internal] standards system, helps prevent costs incurred through incorrect or non-current standards, and allows standards to more readily function as enablers for other major business processes.

Since its initial release in 1994, CP-01, Control Panel Standard –Features for False Alarm Reduction, has significantly contributed to the nearly 70 percent reduction in false intrusion alarms reported to law enforcement. Moreover, during the past 16 years, sales of new alarm system panels have doubled.

In the mid-1990s, the security industry was making huge technological advances in their residential and commercial security panels. However, market presence, consumer confidence, and law enforcement acceptance was undermined by the number of false alarms generated by user error. Among other issues, emergency buttons were too easily triggered, entry and exit times were being set to low, optional communication delays were not being utilized, and system resets were not sequenced properly after power failures. CP-01 addressed many of these problems, and the standard continues to be revised, most recently in May 2010, to meet ever-changing technological demands.

The CP-01 standard has not only allowed dealers, installers and monitoring companies to thrive in communities where local law enforcement had threatened to implement a non-response policy, it has also opened new business by boosting public confidence in the reliability of security systems and convincing officials in several areas to relax what had been very stringent response policies.

The success of the CP-01 panels in curtailing user errors and reducing false alarms was so profound that the National Sheriff’s Association and the International Association of Chiefs of Police passed simultaneous national resolutions recommending that all law enforcement jurisdictions require its use for new installations. As a result, hundreds of agencies have included such mandates in their ordinances, and at least three states have enacted laws requiring panels to be CP-01 compliant.

Harmonizing U.S. packaging machinery safety standards with international standards helps U.S. manufacturers compete globally with a common product design. Risk assessment is a requirement consistent with the E.U. directives.

Also, global consumer goods manufacturers are now requesting the machinery manufacturer share the documented risk assessment with the purchaser. This levels the playing field for all machinery manufacturers.

During the 1980s, the Army was using more than 350 different types of 1.5-volt to 30-volt batteries, consuming nearly 20% of a typical Army unit’s annual budget. In 1996, the Army spent $100 million on batteries and battery expenditures, and portable power requirements of the digitized battlefield were increasing the demand for more powerful primary and rechargeable batteries. A 1996 audit cited that, during a three year period, the Army could reduce expenditures 66% by using rechargeable batteries for training, and could save another $1.9 million if five selected units switched solely to rechargeable batteries.

Through standardization of primary and rechargeable batteries, the Army achieved a higher level of battery interchangeability and unit readiness within military units and across joint and combined operations. The Army decreased battery types used from more than 350 to 35, with a goal to standardize to 25. The Army now spends $75 million a year on battery purchases for all applications, a 25% reduction from its 1996 baseline. During the first four years alone, the Army saved more than $43 million, of that more than $30 million was related to rechargeable batteries. In the end, the Army met audit expectations by reducing expenditures on batteries by 66% over a three year period.

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The financial services industry benefits in many ways from standardization. Banking and financial transactions (card/retail, corporate, credit, payments, securities, etc.) are made up of standards, including codes, transaction sets, data, and more.

Banks and financial services companies rely on data security standards to protect transactions. Standards allow financial transactions to flow with "straight through processing" in an efficient, effective, and secure manner.

Industry standards used in tree care management provide the baseline knowledge for all our industry education and credentialing programs. In addition, they are used as the basis for most large commercial, municipal, utility, and governmental contracting.

These standards are so essential to the services our industry provides, it would be difficult for our organization or our member companies to place a concrete value on them.

In the 1980s, a new pipe-joining technology called a mechanically attached fitting (MAF) was developed, promising substantial improvements including easier fabrication, higher reliability, and lower costs over existing pipe-fitting technologies such as welding and brazing. But the Navy needed a universal test standard to verify the integrity of MAFs before authorizing their use in the fleet.

The Navy chose to work with industry to develop a non-governmental standard (NGS) for MAF testing: ASTM F1387, Standard Specification for Performance of Mechanically Attached Fittings, a flexible but stringent commercial performance standard that addresses all potential MAF designs. These efforts enabled the Navy to adopt and use many MAF designs early and successfully with substantial savings, improved quality and safety, and increased productivity. By 1993, the Navy had used many approved MAFs with excellent results and saved millions of dollars in the first few years.

Several different cost studies show that the use of MAFs saves up to 50% of the installed cost compared with the use of welded or brazed fittings. A fitter/helper team can routinely install 50 to 60 fittings in a single shift, more than double the rate at which welded piping systems typically are shop fabricated. By eliminating welding, many overhead costs relating to safety, personnel, equipment and supplies, inspections, rework, and monitoring are eliminated or substantially reduced.

By expediting the development of the ASTM standard and engaging industry in validation, the Navy brought the new technology to the fleet faster, better, cheaper, and with greater choice of products. The Navy was able to leverage the industry resources rather than conducting the research, testing, and validating using its own resources resulting in a $1 million savings. As the Navy continues to qualify new MAFs and add new applications for MAFs, the recurring savings and cost avoidance continues to grow.

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Safety standard compliance allows us to mark our products accordingly and show customers, installers, and inspectors that we meet the safety requirements for the device.

Showing compliance where others can't gives us an edge.

MedCentral Health System in Ohio needed to streamline its chart abstraction functions to enable it to efficiently meet increasing federal and state core measures reporting requirements. They were looking for a tool that would integrate seamlessly into their current clinical and financial departments and ancillary information systems.

Previously, MedCentral had no data mining applications; they relied on manual chart abstractions. Manually abstracting information buried in many different systems from many different departments can swamp healthcare organizations and poses a serious obstacle to calculating and reporting core measures in a timely manner. And when patient-quality issues are identified, isolating contributing factors can be an arduous task, dramatically slowing down and impeding the ability of a hospital to correct quality problems.

MedCentral looked to Siemens Soarian® Quality Measures for a solutions. Soarian® Quality Measures uses Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) and Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) interoperability specifications in its methods for obtaining patient clinical information, and then evaluates and reports on quality measures based on that information.

By adopting the HITSP specifications and initiating use of EHR technologies, MedCentral’s core measures reporting requirements became less burdensome to facilities and enhanced the reporting processes. In addition, MedCentral experienced improved accuracy of chart abstractions and is now positioned to more effectively manage patient quality issues.

Standards are critical to our global licensing and registration program. They enable manufacturers all over the globe to provide equipment that meets the requirements of the oil and gas industry users.

By using standards, the purchasing, oil, and gas industry user communities can source quality products all over the globe.

Beginning in 1979, the DoD began to address two interrelated aircraft battery issues: first, the inefficiency of the development and acquisition process meant that procurement costs for batteries were higher than necessary; and, second, many of the batteries that resulted from this process were poorly designed. This problem was particularly evident in military aircraft, whose batteries required extensive maintenance and frequent replacement. Moreover, other flaws in these batteries were causing damage to the surrounding battery compartment and other aircraft components due to leaking electrolyte.

To combat these issues the DoD standardized government designed batteries that incorporated technological improvements, cost lest to acquire, lasted far longer, and had requirements for life-cycle, service life, transportation, handling, and environmentally sound manufacturing and disposal.

Standardization afforded an opportunity to improve design and performance while lowering costs. Total reported cost avoidances for the DoD’s battery standardization initiative amounts to $454,717,000, from an investment of $9,341,000 – a return ratio of 49 to 1. About 45% of the savings came from lower procurement costs (i.e., buying fewer and cheaper batteries and parts), and about 55% from reduced maintenance costs (i.e., less frequent and faster scheduled maintenance, and fewer unscheduled repairs), reducing the maintenance performed on aircraft engine batteries by 50%. In addition, major cost avoidances resulted from reduced damage to the battery compartment and aircraft structure.

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Standards allow more organizations to offer sought-after products and services, thereby increasing innovation, competitiveness, and quality while reducing costs and duplicate efforts.

Health care information standards enable pathologists to create and share information in a manner that is cost-effective and of high quality, promoting patient safety and re-use of health care information.