World Standards Day 2020 - Why norms and standards are the superheroes in engineering

In recognition of the efforts of experts working on the development of international standards worldwide, World Standards Day has been celebrated every year since 1970 on October 14. On October 14, 1946, representatives from 25 countries met in London and decided to establish a new international organization with the aim of facilitating the international coordination and unification of industrial standards.

This year, World Standards Day is themed "Protecting the planet through standards". The example of the RoHS Directive (Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic Equipment), which allows technical components to be standardized in terms of their environmental impact, shows how standards can make a decisive contribution to the issue of sustainability. Only if it is ensured during the design of new products that the individual components used are RoHS-compliant the whole end product itself complies with the RoHS directive and may therefore be launched on the market.

The consideration of norms and standards during the design phase is of great importance when developing new products. Not only in terms of compliance with legal requirements, but also with regard to the economic efficiency of designs. Standardized components are not only much cheaper than self-manufactured parts, they are also available quickly and easily at any time. This allows a fast time-to-market when developing new products. Even during the design phase, engineers are therefore faced with certain restrictions in the choice of components.

For manufacturers of technical components, it is therefore a decisive competitive advantage to enrich their digital product data beyond pure geometry with information about standards. If this information is already visible in the digital 3D CAD product catalog, it makes it easier for engineers to select suitable components. Extensive research on the internet, in documentation or queries to the manufacturer are thus unnecessary. Once the components have made it into the design and consequently into the parts list, the purchasing department will then in most cases procure these components from the respective manufacturer.

Engineers and designers who are looking for standard and purchased parts for their designs receive valuable support with the search engine for manufacturer components 3Dfindit and the Strategic Parts Management PARTsolutions from CADENAS. With the help of these innovative solutions, the desired components can be searched for quickly and easily using intelligent search methods. If the product data has been enriched by the manufacturer with information on standards such as RoHS, REACH, WEEE, DIN, EN or ISO, engineers and designers can search for standardized purchased parts and use them in their design as 3D CAD models with just a few clicks.