Design Practices vs. Standards

Thought I would shift gears a bit this month and explain something that, until recently, I didn’t think needed explaining.

I want to talk about the difference between “Design Practices” and “Standards.” They are definitely not the same thing, even though they may be formatted and presented in a similar fashion.

You are likely more familiar with Standards. Standards set prescribed conditions that must be met in order for a product or service to be “within specification.” They are often absolute and unambiguous. For instance, in our industry, laboratories are operated within “Tappi Standard Conditions” which are a specification of humidity and temperature. These are important attributes, for paper responds vigorously to changes in humidity and temperature and other testing results can be wildly affected by these attributes.

Historically, over 150 years ago, John D. Rockefeller named his company “Standard Oil” for he wanted to convey to consumers that his petroleum products met certain rigid standards.

A design practice is more of a suggestion. It embodies experience, technology, and economics in a document and illustrations to show the user how they might approach a task.

For instance, perhaps you are tasked with designing a pipe bridge from the recovery boiler to the pulp mill as economically as possible. Perhaps you have never given this much thought. The shape, bent spacing and other configuration issues might be in a design practice. The pipe on the bridge and the structural components of the bridge are produced to certain standards. For instance, piping famously follows ANSI (American National Standards Institute) B31.1. [What’s a “bent”?—these are the structures place every so many feet (according to a design standard) to support the pipe bridge.]

Design practices are “consider” while standards are “shalls” or “musts.”

The Light Green Machine Institute products will be products of “consider,” “shalls” and “musts” presented unambiguously.

Of special note...

In a few months, we will be moving this column to the Light Green Machine Institute website. There is not much there right now, but you might as well get signed up and start thinking about moving over there. It is at www.lightgreenmachine.institute.