Making standards a key weapon in Ireland's industrial policy will give Irish companies a better chance to succeed in international markets, reports FRANK DILLON

THE WORLD of industrial standards has traditionally had a dusty image of boffins working in the bowels of laboratories with their calibrating devices, far removed from the pressures of the marketplace.

Maurice Buckley, head of the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) has not only a different view, but a mission to make standards a key weapon in Ireland's industrial policy.

Buckley is increasingly working with Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland as part of a Government drive to have agencies co-ordinate their activities.

These days, for example, a pitch to a global medical device company on the IDA's inward investment hit-list will include promotion of the high level of competency Ireland has in meeting the exacting standards required for this industry.

"Ireland is a leader in medical devices and we couldn't be if we didn't have the precision calibrated equipment and expertise that we possess and that the industry relies on," Buckley says.

"This is a good example of a sector that depends, not alone on our technical expertise, but also on our ability to support their work in getting products to market quickly."

NSAI's approach these days is very much more market-led. Buckley says that for some client needs, turnaround times can now be organised in days rather than weeks. The authority is knocking on the doors of Ireland's SME community highlighting what it can do - it is rolling out free access to its library of international standards to companies and is taking a proactive role in the definition of standards on the international stage.

The authority will shortly unveil a three-year strategy plan, a key plank of which involves specific initiatives to help industry to develop international market opportunities.

"Expertise in measurement is a skill and a science and we should make that as widely available as possible to those who can benefit from it," Buckley says.

"Ireland needs to develop a new paradigm if it is to succeed and we have a role in working with the other development agencies in helping Irish companies succeed in international markets."

It's all a far cry from the origins of Irish standards. The first Irish standard, which was called IS1, was introduced in the 1940s as a blunt instrument to protect the Irish cement industry from competition from the UK. By the 1960s, the thinking was more progressive, focussing outwards into new international markets.

This process was accelerated with Ireland's entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. For a common market to work required the adoption of cross-border standards.

Bodies such as the International Standards Organisation (ISO) became the standards setters for international trade, while standards such as the quality standard ISO 9001 became ubiquitous.

NSAI, which is a State-sponsored body reporting to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, evolved out of the old Institute for Industrial Research and Standards and has a wide ranging remit across the areas of official measurement and certification in Ireland. Its legal metrology wing has responsibility for the weights and measures function that inspects retailers' scales to ensure consumer protection.

It holds the base units for measurement in Ireland, the benchmark against which all scales must conform and it is involved in testing and certification of both Irish and international standards. It represents Ireland's interest at the ISO, and is one of 156 countries with a vote there.

Over the years, the NSAI has developed a worldwide reputation for the quality of its work. The authority has worked for Dell computers certifying a number of manufacturing plants and call centres around the world to ISO standards, for example.

Apart from its focus on the medical devices sector, Buckley and his colleagues are also turning their attention to the hard-pressed construction industry.

One of the more regrettable aspects of the recently ended building boom was the fact that there was very little innovation involved in this phase of our economic development, he says.

As it regroups, Buckley would like to see the industry concentrate on product innovation, especially in the area of sustainable and low carbon emission materials. "We developed an industry that accounted for 20 per cent of our GDP, but which had very little to do with innovation so there is no legacy. This could be developed as a sector, however," says Buckley.

While Ireland may have moved a long way since IS1, Buckley also sees a future for Irish standards and says that enterprises here should be encouraged to adopt them and to engage with the standards process as early as possible, starting with workshop agreements. SMEs, he says, shouldn't be afraid that this will involve large expense or bureaucracy. "Where there is common agreement, it will be a matter of pushing an open door," he promises.

So why are standards so important?

According to the ISO, standards provide reassurance on the quality levels of products and services across industries and international boundaries. Take a few simple examples.

A huge number of products that we depend on in our everyday lives, for instance, are held together by bolts and screws.

The diversity of screw threads used to represent big problems for industry, particularly in maintenance, as lost or damaged nuts and bolts could not easily be replaced. A global solution is supplied in the ISO standards for metric screw threads.

Credit cards can be used worldwide because all its basic features are based on ISO standards. Then there's the various graphical symbols on the dashboard of your car or the pictorial symbol on a package marked with handling instructions such as "This way up".

Various ISO technical committees have developed or adopted hundreds of carefully researched signs and symbols that convey clear-cut messages that cross language boundaries.

The book publishing world has embraced a standard numbering system called International Standard Book Number or ISBN for short. This unique identification number for each title is based on an ISO standard.

The ISO is a non-Government organisation and doesn't have the power to enforce the standards it develops. However, a number of the standards that it has developed have either been adopted by industry or have formed the basis of a regulatory framework devised by different governments.

The various ISO standards are developed by technical committees made up of experts drawn from the various industrial sectors that have asked for the standards, and which subsequently put them to use.

These experts are often joined by others with relevant knowledge, such as representatives of government agencies, testing laboratories or consumer associations. The ISO says that some 30,000 experts contribute to this process every year.

In most cases, standards develop by a consensus process. However, this is not always the case. Earlier this year, Microsoft fought a hard-won campaign to get approval of Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML) as a formal document standard by ISO.

The standard had initially been rejected by ISO members, but was later approved after a week-long ballot resolution meeting in which the software giant lobbied hard to gain approval. Microsoft's campaign was opposed by supporters of a rival document standard called ODF.

Ireland used its ISO vote to support Microsoft in its campaign and Buckley sees the issue as an example of how seriously standards are now viewed in global business.

"One of our aims at NSAI is to increase Ireland's level of representation on international standards bodies so we have a greater say in how these decisions are made," he says.