US, Britain in race to export manufacturing standards to India

Friday, 05 December 2003, 20:30 IST
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LONDON: Britain and the US are locked in a race to secure acceptance of their industries' standards in India, China and Brazil - widely seen in the West as manufacturing hotspots and emerging markets. The British Standards Institute (BSI) believes that if British product platforms and management techniques can be exported, British businesses will have an advantage when competing for contracts, selling goods or incorporating new overseas suppliers. But according to standards experts, the US has "woken up" to the risk, reacting in part to the success of European bloc voting within the International Standards Organisation that led to the rejection of US standards in favour of a European alternative. In March, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans issued "a call to action" on standards to "strengthen US competitiveness". The Telegraph said he met individual industry standards setters, such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and is due to report his findings early next year. The Department of Commerce is already retraining its standards liaison officers attached to US embassies in key developing markets. This US presence alone is a "competitive threat", according to the BSI's chairman Sir David John. "There has been a re-evaluation of the impact that standards can make on a Western economy," he said. The BSI has begun reforming how it operates in anticipation of the American push, breaking from the traditional government-led standards setting that has dogged European industry in the past. British standards are frequently adopted as international standards. Most familiar is the ISO 9000 series of quality management systems standards, introduced in 1986 and adopted by more than 400,000 companies worldwide. BOC Edwards, the industrial gases and related equipment manufacturing division of BOC Group, is one British company to have used standards to develop a market-leading range of single axis vacuum pumps, designed for the semiconductor industry. Raj Rajagopal, BOC Edwards chief executive, said: "Having industry standards does benefit a business. You can use the same language and framework and then go on to develop your own products." BOC Edwards adopted the individual standards of large markets such as America and Japan, Rajagopal said. "In other developing countries where they don't have as developed standards, the BSI standard has a good reputation and that helps us," he added.
Source: IANS