How Standards Are Used Across Disciplines
Being the largest, single provider of technical documents, IHS has become synonymous with standards. At the same time, when it comes to the standards that IHS has collected, indexed, and offered over the last 40 years, there is no single standard manner in which they are used across the various disciplines of:
- Research, Design and Development
- Manufacturing Operations
- Quality Control
- Sales and Marketing
- Maintenance and Repair
Each of the above disciplines benefits in different ways from the standards IHS delivers, yet all disciplines within an organization can share a common IHS online access point.
IHS standards portals and document management solutions make it easy to search and procure discipline-specific documents (hard copies or digital), access discipline-specific applications (from ERP to CRM), and tap discipline-specific data sources (from technical specifications and industry standards to finding replacements for obsolete parts).
Research, Design and Development
The initial stages of any product lifecycle represent both a vital investment for long-term business success and a constant challenge to minimize that investment. Time is one of the greatest factors in minimizing R&D costs and maximizing return on investment (ROI).
When the factor of R&D time is applied to standards usage, the key issues are:
- speed of access to the precise standards needed
- speed of design validation
With the powerful search and filter tools in IHS Specs and Standards, your R&D team will not only reduce standards-related research time and increase ROI, but also reduce your company's product liability through accessing up-to-date industry documents.
The IHS Engineering Sciences Data Unit (ESDU) puts the engineering methods and experience of over 200 engineers at your R&D team's fingertips. The Web-based ESDU service provides access to leading research from international experts, reliable design validation, and custom training and education services, all designed to help you create higher quality products.
Manufacturing Operations
When the designed product is handed off to manufacturing, the challenge of minimizing time to market and maximizing ROI remain in place, though the standards-related strategies for meeting those challenges differ.
The discipline of manufacturing builds on the R&D process by further incorporating Product Data Management (PDM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, all while monitoring the engineering process for standards compliance.
In manufacturing, maximizing ROI means avoiding engineering change orders, redesigns, and production downtime, which is often a function of having a centralized information management solution that integrates and accommodates all the various documents and applications inherent to the manufacturing process.
Whether using a full-text search for industry regulations, referring to a technical spec on the production floor, or embedding standards documentation into your manufacturing workflow and PDM, PLM or ERP applications, the IHS collection of standards solutions provides the centralized interface needed to streamline the process and minimize the investment of time.
Quality Control
Throughout the processes of manufacturing, maintenance and repair, the discipline of quality control acts to limit your company's product liability and maximize ROI, all while relying on documents such as specifications, industry regulations, safety codes, reports and tracking, and more.
Quality products and services are invariably built upon quality information and standards. As the amount of information your quality control team has at its manageable disposal increases, the results are:
- superior testing reports
- faster decision-making
- better quality products
- increased productivity
The information critical to effective quality control can be searched and found in the 20-million+ pages of engineering documents in the IHS databases.
Sales and Marketing
While standards may not be traditionally associated with the disciplines of sales and marketing, any good salesperson will tell you how important it is to know your market. Any salesperson, regardless of their engineering status, will generate more sales and company profitability when armed with:
- a thorough technical understanding of your product
- documentation on industry standards or regulations that ensure customers of product compliance
- valuable intelligence on competitors' manufacturing processes and products
- potential leads in the form of companies that may need your products or components
All these sales and marketing aids are easily searched and located online through the IHS Spec and Standards service and IHS product and parts solutions such as HAYSTACK, CatalogXpress, and the IHS Universal Parts Center.
Maintenance and Repair
Standards guide both successful companies and products from beginning to end. In the case of products, the end of the lifecycle is best represented by maintenance and repair, which comes with its own standards-related challenges, such as:
- accessing detailed parts information and historical specs and standards
- identifying and procuring replacement parts, whether common or hard to find, new or old
- researching alternatives for obsolete parts and finding stocking vendors
In each of these cases, the issue of compliance remains front and center. Working confidently with a combination of replacement and historical standards as well as alternative parts is possible with the help of up-to-date, verified industry document resources, such as those offered by IHS:
- Specs and Standards
- Information on Regulations
- CatalogXpress, IHS Universal Parts Center, and HAYSTACK
With electronic 24/7 access to all the documentation and vendor information you need in one place, your maintenance and repair processes can avoid costly downtime while ensuring ongoing product compliance.
IHS Standards Solutions For Every Discipline
Regardless of how each discipline within your company benefits from the powerful standards services and tools from IHS, the results are the same: increased productivity and ROI through reduced research and procurement time, while ensuring standards compliance and minimizing product liability.
