Title
Coordinating International Standards:The Formation of the ISO
Author
JoAnne Yates, and Craig N. Murphy
Date
2/03/2009
(Original Publish Date: 1/10/2007)
(Original Publish Date: 1/10/2007)
Abstract
In the article on Standardization in the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Paul Gough Agnew, the long-time Secretary of the American Standards Association (ASA), argued: In the flow of products from farm, forest, mine, and sea through processing and fabricating plants, and through wholesale and retail markets to the ultimate consumer, most difficulties are met at the transition points, points at which the product passes from department to department within a company, or is sold by one company to another or to an individual. The main function of standards is to facilitate the flow of products through these transition points. Standards are thus both facilitators and integrators. In smoothing out points of difficulty, or bottlenecks, they provide the evolutionary adjustments which are necessary for industry to keep pace with technical advances. They do this in the individual plant, in particular industries, and in industry at large. They are all the more effective as integrators in that they proceed by simple evolutionary steps, albeit inconspicuously.2
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