Why not make 'standards' free?

Should 'Standards' Be Free?

  • Good and Possible

    Votes: 24 72.7%
  • Good but impossible for following reasons... (post)

    Votes: 8 24.2%
  • Bad, because... (post)

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • ... History does not bear subjunctive mood ...

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    33

John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#11
Because:

1. Standards cost money to produce, distribute and maintain.
2. Standards have value.

A better question may be:

"Why does ISO not pay for the volunteers to create their standards."

This would allow more participation from the employees of small and middle sized companies.
 
Elsmar Forum Sponsor
A

Anton Ovsianko

#12
M Greenaway:

- the certification should be paid (even though it might be not worth the money ;) Jim ) if we want it to be taken serious or kind of serious.
- another reason is that the cost which a company bears is a formal reason for people to feel some responsibility for development and mainenance of a registered QAS

That's how it should be IMHO. How it is?...

John Broomfield wrote:

1. Standards cost money to produce, distribute and maintain.
2. Standards have value.

... I could compare these arguments to what I heard from a lady in St.Petersburg Statistical committee (Russia). She is in her 60's and lived most of her life in Soviet times.
I wanted to get some statistical reports there about social and economic situation in St.Petersburg. They are the only body here to produce OFFICIAL statistics. They publish the reports in 20 copies and sell them at a huge price. I just suggested her that they make 1000 copies and sell them in one day through bookstores for 1/10 of current price. She answered:
- How can we sell these valuable reports for peanuts! our best experts were working to prepare them ...:rolleyes:
Logical?...

regards

Anton
 
M

M Greenaway

#13
Sorry Anton

I dont think any company over here would warrant operating a QMS effectively 'because it costs them so much to do so'.

Any cost that adds no value would soon be cut off !
 
A

Anton Ovsianko

#14
OK M Greenaway,

Maybe a wrong argument for an economy of bona fide management and an estblished cost accounting systems. probably I posted it because I am in Russia. ;)

But... why not making football referees work for free?

1. Any auditor doing his job for a particular company should be paid well for it on a legal basis.
2. It is also necessary to attract good experts to auditing.
3. We could make certification free as well, but then we would have to develop a perfect non-profit auditing infrstructure (most probably state), which would require much more resources than development of standards.

regards,

Anton
 
C

Craig H.

#16
If I may, I think the original question has to do with paying for the standard itself, not the costs of obtaining and maintaining a certification.

If the ISO 9000:2000 set is so great, why is there already talk of the NEXT revision? Is it because of the ~$100 in revenue raised from each company needing a copy of the new standard?

How many of you have had a 3rd party auditor ask to see a copy of the standard? Anyone hear what happens if they get handed a photocopy? So, what is more important, the ideas behind the standard, or the perpetuation of the standard itself?

ISO TC 176 has in many ways become a self-perpetuating buracracy. In some ways they have improved on their listening skills, but the small organization has a small chance of being heard. In some ways ISO enhances innovation, (by the process emphasis, for example) but IMHO it does at least as much to stifle it, especially for a small, (and should be) agile, concern.

As far as the need for maintaining the integrity of the standard through copyright, refer to a currently active thread here where the page numbers for copies of ISO 9001:2000 from the same source DO NOT MATCH UP!!! So much for integrity maintenance.

Oops, there's still soap in the box, and its starting to rain. I'd better get down now, before I'm all washed up!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
R

Randy Stewart

#17
I was once cautioned that material I posted on the web could not be tracked for copyright issues. Just too big a job. That maybe 1 reason. My view/opinion is that the organizations make money of the pubs. In the prototype stamping business we love to see revisions to the product because that is where we make the majority of our money.

I have felt for a long while that the interpretations, updates and new "standards" are just another way of organizations to make money. Most of us should remember the initial push for QS in the states. Companies were begging to get auditors out because the demand was so high. Supply and demand, when the demand dies down, restrict or change what needs to be supplied.

It's feasible but impossible.
 
G

Graeme

#18
  • ISO is an international organization - an independent non-governmental agency formed in 1947. (http://www.iso.ch/) The members are the national standards bodies of participating countries. There is a charge for membership, but that does not cover all of the expenses. I assume that the situation is similar to that of professional societies such as ASQ - membership dues cannot fund everything, because to do that would make the cost so high nobody could afford to join.
  • All standards developed and issued by ISO are the intellectual property of ISO. They are all protected by international copyright. In this respect ISO is exactly the same as any other publisher or manufacturer. (Look at it this way -- how much of its intellectual property does your company give away for free?) Copies are available as paper or electronic documents and can be purchased for a comparatively trivial cost from a wide variety of sources. Note: this also applies to all other standards-developing organizations that I am aware of.
  • Comparing the distribution of ISO standards to that of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria is not a fair comparison. The MBNQA criteria are a work product of the US Government. Federal law mandates that it must be available to the public and it cannot be copyrighted.
  • A number of posts refer to things that "the government" can or should or might do if they were ... -- Remember, though, that the only way any form of "the government" can do anything is if they have money. "The government" gets its money from TAXES extracted from the population. TANSTAAFL! ("There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!") Also, history has proven again and again that this is an area where having "the government" do it is often the least efficient or effective way.
  • Realistically, the approximate $120 (US) cost of the set of ISO 9000 standards is trivial when compared to (A) the other business costs that are incurred every day, and (B) the benefits that will be obtained from implementing and conforming to the standard.
  • ISO (like all standards-writing organizations that I am aware of) has a requirement to review all of the standards on a regular cycle. The review is to ensure that the standard continues to be appropriate and effective, achieves its purpose, and responds to the voice of the customer. The way to participate is to become active in the relevant advisory groups and/or technical committees. I am not sure what the review cycle for the ISO 9000 series is, but based on the dates of previous editions (1994 and 1987) I would expect to see a reviewed - and possibly changed - version come out around 2006.
  • Craig H. referred to a case where page numbers do not match in quotations made by different people. I have two very simple explanations for this. First, the standard is originally published on size A4 paper (210 x 297 mm) that is commonly used everywhere in the world except the United States. When it is reformatted to fit US standard "Letter" size paper (216 x 279 mm) there will always be a change in page numbering simply because the paper is shorter. Second, the standard is published in two official languages - French and English (the British variety). Translations from these languages can change the number of words on a page and therefore the page count.
 
L

Laura M

#19
I had a company say - "let's scan in the standard and post it on our intranet." Knowing that violated copyright, I checked into it, and a site license for a 25 seat internal company intranet was like 2K/year. Huh? So if I get the $50 .pdf version, then its only good at my work station? No hard copies either? All my companies have a legal original. I guess you could argue that their quality system is the only reference they need.

So one question might be - are quality manuals that repeat the standard a copyright violation?
I know a HS essay would call it plagerism.
 
#20
Jim Wade said:
----X----
Another question that has always intrigued me is "why repeat the standard in a quality manual; what does that communicate to whom and for what business purpose?"

rgds Jim
Yes, why indeed? The one reason I can think of is that it makes it easy to audit... which is not a good enough reason imo. The system is there for the users, not the auditors.

/Claes
 
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