CASE STUDIES: Service Sector
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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 of how standards and conformance facilitate compatibility, thereby increasing competitiveness and quality while reducing costs and duplicative efforts:
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InfoComm Credentialing Program
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.
– InfoComm International
The JPEG Standard
Digital photos have advanced e-commerce and become an essential part of merchandizing opportunities. Image sharing is also one of the most popular modes of online social interaction, with millions of digital photos distributed every day via e-mail and on enormously successful social networking sites.
The technology that enables digital photography is the industry adoption of the joint photographic expert group (JPEG) image coding standard, the baseline for which was published in 1992 in ISO/IEC 10918-1, Information Technology - Digital Compression and
Coding of Continuous-tone Still Images: Requirements and Guidelines. And the introduction of ISO/IEC 10918-5, Information Technology - Digital Compression and Coding of Continuous-tone Still Images: JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF),
made the popular file extension ‘.jpg’ synonymous with JPEG compressed images.
JPEG has continued to advance innovation via subsequent standards such as ISO/IEC 15444, Information Technology - JPEG 2000 Image Coding System: Core Coding System, a comprehensive imaging coding system addressing new
requirements not included in the original JPEG standard; ISO/IEC TR 24800, Information Technology - JPSearch, addressing the need for image search and
retrieval; ISO/IEC CD TR 29199, Information Technology - JPEG XR Image Coding System, covering extended range technology; ISO/IEC NP 29170, Information Technology - Advanced Image Coding (AIC),
covering coding of audio, picture, and multi- and hyper-media information; and, most recently, the new work item ISO/IEC DIS 18477-1, Information Technology - JPEG Extensions HDR Image Coding System, addressing the needs of high-dynamic range imagery, currently under development.
The exceptionally successful JPEG standard and its descendants are utilized every day by millions of users worldwide, not only in the basic sharing and printing of digital images, but in digital cinema, remote sensing, image surveillance, digital culture imaging, archiving, image search and retrieval, and high-dynamic imagery.
Want to learn more? Check out the full-length case study.
– International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and International Telecommunication Union-Technology Standardization Sector (ITU-T)
Bentley Motors
Since 1938, luxury automaker Bentley has housed their entire operations – from design to production to sales – in one historic location in Crewe, England. Throughout the years Bentley has faced the challenge of updating their famous plant to meet the standards of modern motor manufacturing,
while at the same time leading the industry in engineering, skills, employment, and environmental performance.
To develop an energy monitoring system through a measurable, systematic approach, Bentley implemented ISO 50001: 2011, Energy management systems – Requirements with guidance for use, a voluntary international standard that establishes a framework for small and large industrial plants, and commercial, institutional,
and government facilities to improve the way they manage energy, including energy performance, efficiency, use, and consumption.
By implementing ISO 50001, Bentley has been able to establish sophisticated energy monitoring systems, target areas of energy fissures, and create strategies for improvement in areas covering the use of their boiler and compressed air systems, technology, heating and lighting, insulation, and more efficient variable speed drives on new cars.
As a result, Bentley reduced energy usage by two-thirds for each car produced and by 14% overall for the entire plant, delivering savings of 230 GWh of energy – enough to power 11,500 houses for a year.
– International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
The Virginia Class Submarine
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.
Want to learn more? Check out the full-length case study.
– U.S. Department of Defense
Army Material Command (AMC)
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.
Want to learn more? Check out the full-length case study.
– Army Materiel Command
Testimonials
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.
– Aerospace Industries Association
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.
– Accredited Standards Committee X9, Financial Industry Standards
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.
– Eastman Kodak Company
Standards allow more organizations to offer sought-after products and services, thereby increasing innovation, competitiveness, and quality while reducing costs and duplicate efforts.
– Wincor Nixdorf Inc. USA
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.
– Tree Care Industry Association