Standardisation and Variety Reduction

A standard is defined as a model or general, agreement of a rule established by authority, consensus, or custom, created and used by various levels of interest. For instance, an individual may be the starting point of using standard and then his department will use the same standard to suit its needs. The firm may similarly prepare, by consulting different departments. a standard for guiding the activities. Related industries in. the industry group may also prepare industrial standards. At the national level, by consulting manufacturers, scientist’s users and government departments, national standards are evolved. Such national standards lead to the evolution of international standards. The standards could cover a variety of industries, such as engineering, textile, chemical, pharmaceutical, agricultural as also education. The topics covered under standards can include purchase contracts, forms, sampling, testing; safety measures, etc. Thus, standardization can be conceived on a three dimensional plane of levels, industries and topics.

In the context of materials, we are already aware of use of standards for specifying the items, especially for purchase purposes. Market grades, commercial standards, performance specifications are the popular examples of wide range applications of standardization.

Standardization enables the materials manager to achieve. Overall economy and ensures inter-changeability of parts. With standardization more than one manufacturer can supply and this will imply better availability, better price and better delivery. Standardization also implies reutilizing purchase efforts, less stock and hence less obsolete items. It also Means less inspection efforts; as a matter of fact, many organizations do not check routine items bearing ISI marks in a very. Detailed mariner but resort to inspection of only a. small fraction of items. It is also possible to enter into rate/running contract with standard items. This facilitates the production planning and economic lot-sizing at the supplier’s end.

The process of standardization logically leads to simplification or variety reduction. This implies reducing unnecessary’ varieties and standardizing to the most economical sizes, grades, shapes, , colours, types of parts and so on. In large organizations handling lakhs of item, it is quite possible that there are several items having very little variation in quality, dimension or functional effectiveness. The items can be analyzed for their frequency of usage over the past few years. Such frequency or movement analysis would bring out items which are seldom used or not. Used at all. On the basis of this analysis, the organization could get the standards to replace these items. The process of standardization and variety reduction can be summarized as follows:

• Prepare the list of all items used to make the final product. The list can be made out of the design blue-print in case the product design is just over but Production has not started, or from the actual record of consumption in case the product is in production.

• Classify the items according to their performance (or functional) and dimensional characteristics.
• Group three items with similar functional characteristics and then subgroup according to major dimensional values. For example, all bushes around 5 cm diameter will be in one group while all around 3 cm diameter will be in other group and so on.
• For a group of items with similar functional characteristics, study the dimensional features. In case of large number of items, several item with the same or similar functional requirements, are likely to show the dimensions clustered in a very closed vicinity. Analyse the effect on performance of items if all items are made to the most representative (mean or mode of the frequency distribution) value of the dimension. If the performance characteristics are within satisfactory zone, these items are produced of the same dimension. It may be noted that this is a very important step in variety reduction.
• Check from the national or international standards if there is already a dimension existing equal to the most representative dimension found after analysis in the previous step. If such a dimension is found, the items can be deemed as standardized. If an exact dimension is not found, select the closest dimension and study again the performance of all items in the group around this dimension. If performance is acceptable, the item has been standardized according to national or international standards. If the performance is not satisfactory, organization will adapt a local standard, the dimension being of the representative value.

In addition to the dimensional and performance characteristics of materials, standardization concepts are equally meaningful for the forms, procedures, reports etc. in relation to purchase, stores, and even planning activities. The important benefits are summarized as follows

• Standardization helps reduce inventory items,
• It helps in evolving better means of communication about an item in the company,
• It forms a base for further inventory analysis,
• The specification of items can be more clearly spelt out, making quality control firm, and
• In a developing economy like ours, where the need is to promote exports, insistence on standards helps in creating confidence in the international market.

By using national standards, it is easier to locate sources of supplies and in the case of machine parts the replacements can be obtained easily. It could also be used in advertising for the products as well as spare parts.

Effective steps have been taken in a number of organizations in India for cost reduction in the number of stores items. The aim of standardization should be to have uniform standards for similar items, and the standards evolved should take cognizance of the indigenous availability of the materials to the maximum extent possible. With these broad national objectives in view, the Indian Standards Institution (ISI) has developed and promoted over 13,000 standards covering raw materials, components, and finished products.