- Standardization is to restrict variety to that which has real value for the end-customer. Often it is the operation’s outputs which are standardized. Standardization or standardisation is the process of developing and implementing technical standards. Standardization can help to maximize compatibility, interoperability,safety, repeatability, or quality. It can also facilitate commoditization of formerly custom processes.
Global data synchronization is another important part of standardizing data and removing friction from business transactions. There are huge benefits for both manufacturers and retailers if they are sharing the same product data. Companies in the retail and consumer products goods industries continue to work towards synchronizing data through net and other industry bodies.
THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDIZATION
In consulting to various clients I've been watching some shortcomings, which are not related to software or hardware, but the lack of and standardization: Processes, Service Instructions, and Trainings.
The consequences of this are usually the loss of efficiency, higher operating costs, and the difficulty in developing a corporate image more homogeneous, which could be observed by their customers as a factor that differentiates the company from their competitors.
It is recommended that all people of all levels of the organization are trained to meet the organization's commitment to provide products according to the quality required by a changing market, where requirements and customer expectations are increasing continuously. However it will be effective only if your company already has their Processes, Service Instructions, and Trainings, standardized, documented and easily accessible to everyone. This, therefore, will be the beginning of a process of continuous improvement towards Total Quality, exceeding expectations of your customers.

The importance of standards in our daily lives will surprise you! In addition to industrial products and equipment, standardization covers new fields, such as services, risks, management and more, and involves an increasing number of participants: local councils, consumer associations, professionals, craftsmen, etc. Guaranteeing openness and consultation, in direct relation with the globalization of markets,standardizationis at the heart of the challenges of our companies of tomorrow. As the French representative within European and international standards organizations, AFNOR works to the benefit of the innovation, performance and sustainable development of companies and civil society.
What do a sheet of A4 paper, drinking water, a safety helmet and a pressure cooker have in common? Standardization! All of these items have been the subject of important discussions at French, European and international level to reach a consensus on the criteria they must meet; criteria aiming to establish the best compromise between the state of a technology or procedure and economic constraints.

What primarily drives the members of standardization commissions around the world to become involved in this large-scale work is their desire to define a level of quality and safety for products and services. End users now have the assurance that their coffee machine is not going to explode due to poorly controlled pressure, the emergency stop button on a machine tool is visible and within reach, their payment card can be inserted into any terminal anywhere in the world, goods transport containers are suitable for boats, trucks and trains the world over, and so on.

Standards also represent a major challenge for companies. They facilitate the free movement of their products on a market by encouraging the interoperability and comparability of products and services. They thus contribute to the competitiveness of organizations and enable a certain rationalization of production or the business. The standardization of organization methods (also known as standardization of management systems) enables bodies (both public and private) to have the best of practices to optimize their resources (human, material and financial) and be more efficient. Quality, safety and environment management standards therefore provide the methodological tools for improving the effectiveness of organizations.

Standards are voluntary in nature and there is no obligation to conform to them. They represent companies' commitments to satisfying a recognized and approved level of quality and safety. By being cited as reference documents, standards can support mandatory regulations issued by public authorities. Only 2% of standards are mandatory.

Service Design Creates Breakthrough Customer Experiences

Service designers broadly define what they do as a collaborative process of researching, envisioning, and then orchestrating experiences that happen over time and across multiple touchpoints. Unlike traditional design disciplines, service designers typically examine — and often re-engineer — the strategy behind a service as well as the operational systems, processes, and resources that deliver it.
PRODUCT DESIGN: A KEY TO ORGANIZATIONAL SUCCESS
Product design is an essential activity for firms competing in a global environment. Product design drives organizational success because it directly and significantly impacts nearly all of the critical determinants for success. Customers demand greater product variety and are quick to shift to new, innovative, full-featured products. In addition, customers make purchase decisions based on a growing list of factors that are affected by product design. Previously, customers made purchase decisions based primarily on product price and/or quality. While these factors are still important, customers are adding other dimensions such as customizability, order-to-delivery time, product safety, and ease and cost of maintenance. Environmental concerns are expanding to include impacts during production, during the product's operating life, and at the end of its life (recycle-ability). In addition, customers demand greater protection from defective products, which leads to lower product liability losses. Safer and longer lasting products lead to enhanced warrantee provision, which, in turn, impact customer satisfaction and warrantee repair costs.
Programs and activities are being put in place so organizations can cope with these dimensions. Organizations are embracing concepts such as mass customization, design for manufacturing and assembly, product disposal, quality function deployment, and time-based competition. They are using technology such as rapid prototyping and computer-aided design to examine how products function, how much they may cost to produce, and how they may impact the environment. Firms are searching for and implementing new technologies to determine ways to design better products. They are examining legal and ethical issues in product design as well as the impact of product design on the environment.
PRODUCT DESIGN AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Organizations consider product design a critical activity to the production of environmentally friendly products. Organizations increasingly recognize that being good corporate citizens increases sales. Fast-food restaurants have begun recycling programs and redesigned packaging materials and systems in response to customer concerns. In other cases, being a good corporate citizen and protecting a company's renewable resources go well together; there are win-win opportunities where an organization can actually design products and processes that cut costs and increase profits by recapturing pollutants and reducing solid waste.
The objective of product design is to create a good or service with excellent functional utility and sales appeal at an acceptable cost and within a reasonable time. The product should be produced using high-quality, low-cost materials and methods. It should be produced on equipment that is or will be available when production begins. The resulting product should be competitive with or better than similar products on the market in terms of quality, appearance, performance, service life, and price.
Importance of Standards
Standards make life safer, healthier and easier for people, organisations and enterprises all over the world. They enable communication and trade, while allowing resources to be used more efficiently.
All businesses can benefit from standards: from global heavyweights to small local firms; from ambitious start ups to long established household names, from hospitality, catering and retail businesses through construction, manufacturing and engineering firms to high tech innovators.
Businesses can use established standards to reduce time, effort and money they have to invest in the research and development of new products, while increasing their likelihood of success in the market place.
By providing best – practice guidance, standards help businesses to assess their processes, allowing them to take steps to increase efficiency and become more profitable.
Standards also provide a reliable benchmark against which performance can be judged, enabling businesses to demonstrate product performance. Introducing standards can help businesses to retain existing clients and generate sales from new customers.
The quality of your goods, services or processes might already be high, but customers only have your word for it. Being able to say that you comply with widely recognised and respected standards is an effective way of backing up your claims.
Some customers will only buy from suppliers that comply with certain standards. This is often the case with public-sector contracts.
Standards-compliance can provide competitive advantage; too, it could well be a deciding factor when a buyer has to choose between two comparable suppliers.
Successful businesses aim to make their products as attractive to their target market as possible. Manufacturing products or supplying services to appropriate standards can maximise their compatibility with those manufactured or offered by others, thereby increasing potential for their sale and use.

You have started prototyping your new product, and it looks promising. The pieces you were most worried about building are going just fine, and you have figured out how to integrate them into the rest of the package.
You cannot contain your enthusiasm as you discuss your progress with friends, family and, even, the occasional stranger. But whenever you show them the prototype, they seem a little puzzled and invariably mumble something about looking forward to seeing the finished product. You’ve always dismissed those comments, but now you are starting to wonder.
Maybe you should add some more technical features. That should generate some excitement. On the other hand, there’s that artist friend of yours who works in industrial design. She keeps offering to help out, but you’ve told her that you can’t afford to make your product “pretty.”
That’s where you may be wrong. Design is not just about looks, it is also about usability. Apple, Nespresso, and many other companies are proof of that. Sure, your product will have to serve a useful function, and your prototype shows that it can. But, that alone is not likely to drive the sales you want and deserve.

Why is good product and service design important? Good design makes good business sense because it translates customer needs into the shape and form of the product or service and so enhances profitability. Design includes formalizing three particularly important issues: the concept, package and process implied by the design. Design is a process that itself must be designed according to the process design principles described in the previous chapter. What are the stages in product and service design? Concept generation transforms an idea for a product or service into a concept which captures the nature of the product or service and provides an overall specification for its design. Screening the concept involves examining its feasibility, acceptability and vulnerability in broad terms to ensure that it is a sensible addition to the company's product or service portfolio. Preliminary design involves the identification of all the component parts of the product or service and the way they fit together. Typical tools used during this phase include component structures and flow charts. Design evaluation and improvement involve re-examining the design to see whether it can be done in a better way, more cheaply or more easily. Typical techniques used here include quality function deployment, value engineering and Taguchi methods. Prototyping and final design involve providing the final details which allow the product or service to be produced. The outcome of this stage is a fully developed specification for the package of products and services, as well as a specification for the processes that will make and deliver them to customers.

The performance of the product and service design is measured by its quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost. The stages of product and service design include concept design, concept screening, preliminary design, evaluation & improvement and prototype and final design. All of these stages finally run out a fully developed product. As a result, a concept, a package and a process is designed in the product and service design.
What does service design mean to your organization? Does the responsibility of serving your customers rest solely in your marketing and audience services departments?
It’s not uncommon to read articles and blog posts highlighting the importance of delivering exceptional customer service, nor is it rare to read about an increasing interest in producing participatory work that allows the customer to act as “co-curator.” But to create a lasting impact we need to combine these ideas and consider how every aspect of our work may (or may not) affect our customers. Attention to the customer experience must be paid by all departments in order to ensure delivery of top quality experiences and services because this service delivery is critical to nurturing the customer relationship, building value and ensuring sustainability. In their paper, “The Politics and Theatre of Service Design,” Lara Penn and Cameron Tonkinwise state, “service designs must guide the recipient in how to make appropriate demands of the service; but they must also guide the provider in how to meet those varied demands in flexible ways.” We need to fully understand the type of experience our customers want—beginning with the initial encounter and continuing after the experience has ended—and identify ways in which we can cater to those desires as a means to fulfill mission.