The challenge of standardization as a platform for innovation transfer

Dietmar Harting, Dipl.-Kfm., Harting KGaA, Espelkamp

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 9/27/2001)

It was fairly precisely one year ago that we conducted a workshop on the occasion of the annual DKE conference that included representatives of industry, standardization organizations and the scientific community. Taking microsystems technology as a concrete example, we discussed the role of standardization in the introduction of new technologies. A number of surprising and widely diverging lines of argumentation emerged in the process. The most negative response to our question -"Does standardization promote the introduction of new technologies?" .can be summed up as follows: "Standardization under no circumstances, standardization kills innovation!"What is the essence behind this statement? Many people tend to regard standardization as something slow and inert. After having finally established common ground as a result of seemingly endless negotiations, certain conditions are defined in a binding manner, giving rise to expectations of continuity or a permanence of sorts. And what about innovation? Innovation is creativity, whereby speed is the name of the game. Can the two aspects ever be reconciled? The "fire" of innovation and the "water" of standardization? My feeling is that in the past, when wehad product life cycles of more than five years duration, standardization signaled a different content. Standardization had more to do with safety, with securing and protecting certain positions.