Standards, Today and Tomorrow: Will
There Be a World of Difference?
Karen Brown, Acting Director,
National Institute of Standards and Technology,
U.S. Department of Commerce
Symposium on Standards
Setting and the Rate of Technology Development
February 17, 2001, AAAS
Annual Meeting, San Francisco
TEXT AS PREPARED
Introduction
- The enticements of a Friday
night in San Francisco generally are not a boon to attendance at Saturday
morning symposia. But, today, early risers were rewarded with
a wonderful talk by Lew Branscomb, who commemorated the hundredth anniversary
of the National Institute of Standards and Technology—the organization
I represent. A physicist by training, Lew spent a very productive
two decades at NIST, then known as the National Bureau of Standards.
His last three years—from 1969 to 1972—were spent as director.
From NIST, he went to IBM to become chief scientist and vice president.
And from there, he went on to Harvard to direct its Science, Technology,
and Public Policy Program.
- My career path runs opposite
of Lew’s. I came to NIST after spending 22 years at IBM.
The last four were on assignment to SEMATECH, where I was director of
lithography. I also have been deeply involved in the development
of standards under the umbrella of SEMI—that’s Semiconductor Equipment
and Materials International.
- Though my resume might
suggest otherwise, I’m really not partial to organizations known by
acronyms or abbreviations. That’s FYI.
- NIST is one of this nation’s
oldest scientific organizations, and standards are organic to what we
do. Our job, by the way, is not to regulate.
Rather, it is to facilitate and, sometimes, to coordinate. We’re
the nation’s measurement authority, not its measurement police.
- Measurements, however,
are integral to many varieties of standards—those specifying, for example,
the dimensions of screw threads, the diameter of optical fibers, the
content of steel alloys, electromagnetic compatibility requirements,
the performance of machine tools or robots, and so on. So, NIST
often is called upon to contribute its technical expertise as standards
are being developed.
- As important—and sometimes
more—our impartiality and neutrality can be key to achieving industry
agreement on a particular standard. Today, it seems, there is
a growing need for neutral forums to negotiate responses to standards-related
issues.
ABOUT STANDARDS
- The topic of standards
is, at once, pedestrian and profound. Standards are pedestrian
in the sense that they are everywhere—so commonplace that they are taken
for granted and, in some quarters, are considered to be about as interesting
as watching grass grow or paint dry.
- But remove this inconspicuous
platform of technical support, and life as we have come to expect it
begins to unravel. Laboratories, companies, and entire industries
may become less efficient. Transactions may take longer to conclude.
Products may work with a smaller set of other products and services.
And so on, and so on.
- So, yes, standards are
profound in the sense that they are fundamental to this nation’s economy
and vital to world commerce.
- Indeed, members of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)—another international
professional organization with a long and proud past—ranked the promulgation
of standards among the top 10 engineering accomplishments of the last
century. Standards shared top-10 honors with such accomplishments
as the inventions of the automobile and airplane.
- NIST, I should point
out, has been a significant contributor to the building of our nation’s
standards infrastructure. In 1909, we helped to establish the
American Engineering Standards Committee, the forerunner of the American
National Standards Institute. And by 1927, NIST was cooperating
with more than 200 organizations on matters related to standards and
to testing.
- Many of these organizations
still exist and continue to develop standards, usually for particular
industrial sectors. Examples are ASME and the American Society
for Testing and Materials, or ASTM.
- Traditionally, these
are the kinds of organizations most closely associated with the
development of voluntary standards—in the United States, at least.
- Today, standards are both
exalted and vilified. Consider these statements about standards:
- First pair of statements;
please answer, “yes” or “no” for each.
Standards stifle innovation.
Standards are platforms
for innovation.
- Second pair of statements;
again, answer, “yes” or “no” for each.
Standards promote trade.
Standards impede access
to export markets.
- Third pair of statements.
Standards are for the market
to decide. “Yes” or “No.”
Next: Standards are
matters of public interest and even geopolitical interest. “Yes” or
“No.”
- Final pair of statements;
you know the drill.
Standards foster monopolization.
Standards lower barriers
to market entry.
ANSWER: Yes, to
all of the above. That’s right, yes to all. Welcome to the topsy-turvy
world of standards and standardization.
- Now, let’s explore some
of these seemingly contradictory aspects of standards.
- For good and for bad,
standards are a nearly pervasive influence on commerce. The
OECD—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—estimates
that 80 percent of world merchandise trade is impacted by standards
and regulations that embody standards.
- On the positive side,
for example, standards are means to ensuring satisfactory compliance
with health, safety, and environmental requirements.
- On the negative side,
standards—or the regulations that embody them—can be duplicative,
non-value-added requirements—different pieces of red tape created
for largely the same purpose.
- For one example:
The Transatlantic Business Dialogue attributes up to 10 percent
of the cost of designing and developing a new automobile to differing
or duplicative requirements.
- For another:
Hewlett Packard’s director of corporate standards has estimated
that, worldwide, the number of regulations and standards pertaining
to “information technology equipment” has increased sixfold since
1989.
- Standards can influence
the market in other ways, usually in combination with other competitive
factors. Is the fact that, soon, Motorola will no longer manufacture
mobile telephones in the United States a downstream consequence of
U.S. inertia in the standards arena?
- This is a very complex
situation, but some people point to the market-shaping impact of
the European Community decision to adopt a single cellular telephone
standard. This created a vast, unified home that helped Nokia
leapfrog past Motorola and become the market leader.
- Standards can have
high-stakes impacts. They can tip the balance in favor of
certain competitors and even certain national economies.
- Standards have a chameleon-like
identity—colored by the environment in which they are viewed.
For example:
- From the perspective
of a rapidly growing, fast-changing high-tech industry, such as wireless
communication devices, for example, or from the perspective of a mature
and more predictable industry, such as machine tools or automobiles.
- From the perspective
of a technology leader or a follower.
- A user of technology
or a vendor of technology.
- Or from the perspective
of a multinational firm or that of a small company largely focused
on the domestic market and, maybe, a handful of export outlets.
Signs of Change
- No matter where you sit,
however, you’re likely to find some dissatisfaction with the way standards
are promulgated, . . . the way they are implemented (or ignored),
. . . or the way in which compliance—or conformity—with standards is
determined.
- Here are a few indications
that people believe improvements are needed:
- the proliferation of
ad hoc standards consortia,
- the so-called Open Source
Movement,
- the development of National
Standards Strategies in the United States and Canada, and
- continuing debate over
what constitutes an international standard.
- To state the obvious,
standards organizations and standardization processes are evolving.
Unknown, however, is whether forces at work today—globalization, the
rapid diffusion of technology, and so on—have pushed this evolution
to an inflection point, a point of punctuated equilibrium, to borrow
a term from biology.
Multiplicity of Standards
Systems.
- The U.S. National Standards
Strategy, which ANSI and NIST spearheaded, responds to today’s reality
of multiple standards systems, and it recognizes the need for a diversity
of approaches among sectors.
- The overall goal of the
strategy is to ensure that U.S. technical input is reflected in global
standards, which would help to reduce the potential for trade barriers.
- The strategy is actually
a set of guiding principles that establishes a basis for collective
action, as appropriate. Obviously, this is a judgment call.
But a sound strategy can help companies and other organizations to recognize
when it is in their best interest to act cooperatively.
- To fully appreciate
why a U.S. standards strategy was developed, you should know that
there are about 550 U.S. organizations that develop standards for
domestic and, often, international use.
- This diversity can be
healthy. It also can be the source of chaos and confusion—especially,
at the international or global level.
- ISO and IEC—that’s the
International Organization for Standardization and the International
Electrotechnical Commission—are examples of increasingly influential
bodies where, according to some observers, U.S. technology interests
should be championed more coherently and more effectively.
- The system of one
nation, one vote, is seen as advantaging regional interests, such
as the European Union.
- Obviously, there are
many elements to the strategy, and Mark Hurwitz, the president and
CEO of ANSI, can provide more details.
Information Technology:
Is It Different?
- But is a National Standards
Strategy even relevant to the information technology sector, where standards
are matters of great concern? After all, most of the 150 or so
standards consortia and ad hoc standards alliances focus on IT needs.
These organizations are situated outside the traditional realm of standards.
- They sprouted and multiplied
because of the slow pace of standards development—especially achieving
consensus—in traditional bodies. Quite literally, Internet time
and standards time are many years apart—and, more important, many
product cycles apart.
- There is at least one
area where the more formal standards development process—with its principles
of openness, transparency, balance, and consensus—can make a contribution
to the spread of e-commerce and other Internet technologies. That’s
the area of interoperability standards.
- Interoperability standards
specify how devices communicate with each other. They are absolutely
essential infrastructural elements of systems, networks, and networks
of systems.
- Standardization efforts
in this area should be global and they should be driven by technical
superiority, not by the jockeying of geopolitical interests.
- The public good content
of interoperability standards is high. The costs associated
with interoperability problems also are high.
- Imperfect interoperability
imposes huge costs on U.S. industry—at least $1 billion per year
in the automotive supply chain alone.
- Yet, such standards
also should be grounded in the market—although public interest may
require something more than a strictly market-based solution.
- That “something more”
could be a timely technical or financial assist from government—and
not a new regulation.
Needed: Cooperation, Collaboration
- For the wireless Internet,
e-commerce technologies, telemedicine, intelligent transportation systems,
and other realms of IT, standardization of infrastructure is crucial.
It often requires the contributions of government and industry.
It also requires international cooperation.
- Here are a few good examples
of public and private collaboration on standards:
- The U.S. Department
of Transportation, for example, has provided focus and direction in
the development of standards for intelligent transportation technologies—everything
from the collision-avoidance systems now entering the market to far
more futuristic technologies under development.
- With U.S. standards
developers (such as the Society of Automotive Engineers), it developed
a common standards taxonomy and recently launched a program for
testing standards. The Department of Transportation also is
helping to coordinate U.S. participation in ISO and other organizations
that also are developing standards for intelligent transportation
systems.
- At NIST, we also contribute
to the successful development and deployment of advanced information
technologies. Some of our work is aimed at accelerating the
process of industry standardization and keeping it solidly focused
on technical issues. Some examples:
- NIST led the global
effort to develop the Advanced Encryption Standard, which will be
used to ensure that encrypted sensitive data cannot be decoded by
anyone but the intended parties. The innovative process broke
new ground in international cooperation.
- NIST’s XML Conformance
Test Suite is enabling industry to exploit the full range of possibilities
that XML—the rapidly spreading Internet language—creates for e-commerce
applications. We teamed up with OASIS—the Organization for
the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, an international
consortium with about 200 participating members—to refine and extend
NIST-developed software tests that permit people to make sure that
their XML systems conform with industry standards.
- NIST’s technical expertise
and impartiality were tapped by industry in its efforts to develop
and implement standard reference guidelines for emerging biometric
authentication techniques.
- With the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, NIST established
the National Wireless Electronic Systems Testbed. This is
an important facility for collaborative system-level measurements
in support of wireless standardization. The testbed has attracted
more than 80 companies that are developing high-bandwidth, wireless
technologies and services for the Internet.
- To this point, N-WEST
has been primarily targeted at Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks,
but its applicability is much more general.
- NIST plays a variety of
roles in support of private-sector standardization efforts. As
the last few examples illustrate, we facilitate, convene, and provide
technical expertise. We follow industry’s lead and work with industry
to add value.
- NIST also supports trade
agreements by helping to build the underlying infrastructure (e.g.,
conformity assessment) necessary to put these agreements into effect.
- An example is the Mutual
Recognition Agreement on telecom and electronic products that we just
implemented with the European Union. We helped build the infrastructure
that enables mutual acceptance of product tests performed on either
side of the Atlantic.
- We also coordinate federal
agencies’ use of voluntary standards, a transition that is beginning
to accelerate. This should be viewed a very significant development,
especially when you consider that the federal government (especially
the Department of Defense) has been one of the world’s largest developers
of standards.
- The number of jobs that
NIST could do exceeds our resources. So the standards-related
efforts that we do undertake are chosen, using these decision-making
criteria:
- long-term focus;
- significant industrial
need;
- potential for high value
added contribution; and
- adequate resources to
do the job right.
- Keep in mind that lots
of standardization efforts succeed on a regular basis without publicity
or undue strife. Also keep in mind that, although many standards
are developed, far fewer are adopted and implemented on the scale that
motivated their creation.
- Over the longer term,
we should work to eliminate inefficiencies, inconsistencies, and the
like. At the international level, however, we should also accept
that there always will be heterogeneity in standards and regulations.
- Because science and technology
are evolving rapidly and because more and more nations are hitching
their economic futures to technology development, standardization always
will be a bone of contention lurking in the affairs of industry and
nations. We must continue to learn as we go.
- I often say you don’t
have to be bad to get better. When it comes to standards, we clearly
can—and must—get better.
- Thank you.
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