The purpose of this paper is to outline international standardization processes and their impact on engineering design; the important role of European and US standards developers in defining global design practice is emphasized. Examples are given of how international standardization activities are affecting engineering design suggesting ways faculty could incorporate standardization issues in teaching engineering design and practice. It is suggested that student understanding of these and similar issues could also be used to demonstrate some of the outcomes called for in the ABET Criteria and could be an important part of students' general education and their introduction to practice issues in engineering.

The ABET Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs (ABET, 2002) require that students use engineering standards in the major design experience. Part of the incentive for highlighting engineering standards in the Criteria may have been a recognition of the increasing importance of "international standards" on engineering design and practice.

What are international standards? The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Guide 2 definition is keyed to membership by a national body in an international organization. However, standards developed by major U.S. standards developing organizations (SDOs) such as ASTM International (ASTM) and ASME International (ASME) are used worldwide and are considered by many to be international standards. The American National Standards Institute's(ANSI) International Committee has taken the position that an international standard should be defined by the process that is followed which would be less restrictive than the ISO Guide 2 definition.

The European countries and the United States lead in the development of standards and have major input to the ISO process. The ANSI represents the United States in non-treaty standards activities and is the U.S. member of the ISO. Membership in ISO is by country. ANSI is not a government agency and is not a SDO. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is the electrical counterpart of ISO and develops and publishes standards for electric and electronic technologies - areas not covered by ISO. Finally, there is the International Telecommunications Union (ITU); the ITU recommends and publishes standards but is fundamentally different from the ISO and IEC. Like the ISO and IEC it is headquartered in Geneva but governments, rather than private sector entities, are the members. The ITU is a treaty organization and coordinates global telecommunications services. The U.S. Department of State advocates for polices in the telecommunications area including the acceptance of technical standards.

There are two European standards organizations that parallel ISO and IEC. The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) develops standards in the areas of the ISO and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) develops standards in the areas of the IEC. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) develops telecommunications standards for the European Union. In the European "new approach", the EU issues a directive, the European standards bodies develop the standards, and the standards becomes European Standards (EN). These harmonized standards carry the presumption of conformity throughout the European Union. The new approach deals with "essential requirements" affecting health and safety so not all areas are covered.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Technical Barrier to Trade(TBT) agreement (WTO, 2002) encourages development of international standards and conformity assessment systems and efforts to ensure that technical regulations and standards do not become unnecessary barrier to trade. It encourages use of international standards in technical regulations except where they would be ineffective. Annex 3 of the TBT Agreement is a code of good practice for standards. WTO members are required to notify the WTO Secretariat of all proposed government regulations and conformity assessment procedures that might significantly affect international trade. The National Center for Standards and Certification Information (NCSCI) at NIST maintains information on notifications of proposed foreign regulations issued through the WTO Secretariat and disseminates them to interested parties in the United States for their review and comment(Overman and Lay, 1999). NCSCI staff are responsible for notifying the WTO Secretariat of proposed U.S. technical regulations which may affect trade. An annual report is available describing TBT Agreement activities.

Globalization effects on standards are relatively easy to see in product manufacturing. Bottom line - companies that sell products internationally are going to look for international standards that will allow them to sell in the largest market. In the United States, most standards are developed in the private sector and the standards process is private-sector driven. The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act requires use of non-government standards where possible. The updated OMB Circular A-119 defines requirements for the use of voluntary consensus standards by federal agencies. In the EU, the government, as suggested above, has a central role in standards development particularly in areas affecting health and safety. Taken together, the US and the EU are the major developers of standards and they can essentially determine what become international standards (Vogel, 1997).

Some of the high-visibility standards controversies have been related to environmental standards. The WTO TBT agreement allows countries to protect their environment and recognizes that different measures can be appropriate in different settings. However, technical regulations must not create unnecessary obstacles to international trade. Also, they should not be more restrictive than necessary to meet their objectives and should have a reasonable base in scientific-based risk assessment.

Probably, the most well-know case is the EU ban on genetically engineered beef. However, cases dealing with gasoline are more relevant to this discussion. In 1996 the WTO ruled that USEPA standards set under the Clean Air Act for imported gasoline were inconsistent with US obligations under the WTO agreement. The key issue in this case, according the WTO, is not the standard but that the standard unfairly discriminated against foreign gasoline. This case was brought to the WTO by Brazil and Venezuela. As a result of the WTO ruling, the EPA prepared revised regulations that were implemented in 1997 completing the WTO dispute resolution process.

A fundamental role of government is to protect the health and safety of its citizens. There are a number of government agencies in the United States that develop and publish standards designed to protect health and safety and in many cases these become technical regulations. For the purposes of trade, the WTO defines technical regulations in the WTO TBT Agreemen. It also provides guidance to be used by members in preparing, adopting and implementing technical regulations.

The new ABET Criteria require students to use engineering standards in the major design experience. Relevant standards should be consulted early in the design process and since, as suggested above, many companies want their products to be accepted in the global market, students could be expected to look to see if their product is likely to be covered by an EU Directive. According to the most recent report by the U.S. Trade Representative, the European Union continues to be the U.S.'s largest trading partnerand, as such, is a large market for US goods and services.

NIST has a number of publications that students could be directed to to learn about the EU Directives that could affect their design project. NIST Special Publication 951 (NIST, 2000) gives an overview of the European process. A table is included which shows the product fields affected by the new approach. Areas covered by directives include: medical devices, construction products, machinery, and low voltage equipment.

A series of reports are available dealing with directives in different sectors which students could consult for details specific to their project area. These documents provide more detail than NIST SP 951 but are linked to this document. An example is the guide to the machinery directive (NIST, 2001). The essential requirements deal with health and safety and this NIST report includes a discussion of health and safety issues specific to machinery. ABET Criterion 4, in addition to requiring students to use engineering standards, also expects them to incorporate realistic constraints that include the following considerations: economic; environmental; sustainability; manufacturability; ethical; health and safety; social; and political. A discussion of the machinery directive would be a relatively straightforward way for students to get a feel for some of these considerations as they relate to the design of machinery.

There are guides related to medical devices, the low voltage directive, and other sector-specific issues as well as more general guides dealing with issues such as product liability and product safety. All of these documents are available for downloading from the NIST site.

These sector guides could be used to provide background for the major design experience in mechanical, electrical and biomedical engineering and the general guide for all areas. They provide a framework that could be useful in developing design constraints that address the considerations listed in Criterion 4. In addition, discussions can be built around the major design experience that are relevant to some of the outcomes listed in Criterion 3.

The requirement for the general education component (Criterion 4) is that it complement the technical content of the curriculum. Certainly putting many of the standards issues in their societal context would fit this definition. As an example, many companies are looking to address what is being called the "triple bottom line" - society, economic and environment considerations. In this case, three of the considerations mentioned in Criterion 3 are specifically being considered. The ISO may consider developing a standard to "operationalize" corporate society responsibility. Here engineering considerations would be part of an overall part of a business strategy.

An introduction to the international aspects of codes and standards could also useful in demonstrating some of the outcomes in Criterion 3.

As mentioned above, ANSI represents the United States internationally in non-treaty standards discussions. Over the last ten years, there have been major changes in European standards processes as the EU implemented its "new approach." The directives have already been referred to above in the discussion of design considerations. However, it may also be useful for students to consider the policy aspects of standards in the European Union. The new approach deals specifically with health and safety so that standards developed for the directives serve to ensure that government goals for health and safety are achieved.

The WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade Annex 3 is code of good practice for standards to which any standards body within the territory of a WTO member body may subscribe. ANSI has notified acceptance of the WTO TBT Code of Good Practice for the Preparation, Adoption and Application of Standards.

The Code expects that standards bodies in member subscribing countries will fully participate in the development of relevant standards. This is true for both standards and technical regulations which are defined separately in Annex 1. Since the U.S. system is private-sector driven and has relatively little government funding relative to other countries, this poses special challenges for the U.S. in ensuring appropriate participation.

Although larger companies have tended to support standards work internationally, continuing globalization will make international codes and standards more relevant to firms of all sizes. The high cost of international participation is a barrier to participating but it can be expected that the growing use of the Internet is all its forms will make participation more affordable. The incentive to make more effective use of electronic tools is not only to reduce cost but also to speed up the processes. This will likely have the side benefit of opening up participation.

International standards will become increasingly important for all engineers not just those working internationally. Although there is a great deal of information available on standards it not currently organized in a way that is easily accessible for students and faculty. As mentioned above, the first issue is background for students to use in their areas of design. It would be useful to define what basic standards students should consult in the main areas of engineering. For example, students in civil engineering should consult model and local building codes, and supporting standards and design codes.

At the national and international level, what standards should students be familiar with and how should this be done? At MIT, mechanical engineering students are directed to search the National Standards network to see if a standard is ANSI approved. MIT has all ANSI approved standards in its library, along with ASTM and IEEE (electronic access) standards. It also maintains SAE aerospace and ground vehicle standards. The National Standards Network may be accessed for free at http://www.nssn.org/. Although the NSSN originally stood for the national standards system network it is now much broader and is a good starting point for students to research international standards.

Access to ISO standards may be limited for many students. However, there is some information on ISO processes available on the ISO web site that students can consult.

ANSI is developing on-line courses on standards that should provide a base of knowledge about standards that graduates can build on. In practice, engineers will certainly need an in-depth knowledge of the standards in their field of specialization but also should learn about the process of developing standards in their field of specialization. General information on standards development processes is available for some of the engineering societies and some of the SDOs such as ASTM International on the web. The best way to learn about standards development processes is by membership on a U.S. standards writing committee and participating in its international activities.

International standards will be increasingly important for practice in all engineering fields. Students should be introduced to the basics of standards and some detail relevant to their field of specialization as part of their undergraduate program to satisfy ABET Criterion 4.

The importance of trade to the practice of engineering varies in the different fields but all students would benefit by developing an appreciation of the roles of standards and technical regulations in trade. There are number of ways this could be done including explicitly including consideration of international standards in the senior design experience.

There are extensive materials on all aspects of standards available on the web with much of it freely accessible. What is needed is some cataloging and some case history examples of use demonstrating the importance of international standards in specific engineering projects. It would also be useful to have in-depth examples of the effect of technical regulations on design.

References

Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc (ABET) 2002 Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, Baltimore, MD http://www.abet.org/criteria.html

ANSI National Standards Strategy for the United States, http://www.ansi.org/Public/nss.html

European Union, New Approach http://www.newapproach.org/

NIST 2000 NIST Special Publication 951 A Guide to EU Standards and Conformity Assessment http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/210/gsig/eu-guides/sp951/sp951.pdf

NIST 2001 NIST GCR 01-814 A Guide to the EU Machinery Directive, http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/210/gsig/eu-guides/gcr-814/machinery-gcr-01-814.htm

Overman, J.R., and Lay, A.D. 1999 TBT Agreement Activities of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1998, NISTIR 6363, http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/210/ncsci/98tbtrept.htm

World Trade Organization, 2002, The WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tbt_e/tbtagr_e.htm

Vogel, D. 1997 Barriers or Benefits? Regulation in Transatlantic Trade, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 80 pp.