Measurement Case Study 7: Descriptive practice-oriented research

standardization processes, such as technical managers, technical experts who wrote standards, standards users, and standards officers staff at the standardization department. We spent at least 1 week in each company, conducting a number of 15–20 interviews of 1–2 hours each in each company. Additional data were also generated by means of observation, informal conversations, and reading documents e.g. written descriptions of company standardization processes.

11.4.4 Data presentation

Each company’s standardization processes were described in detail, using flowcharts. Our model appeared to be a useful framework for this description. Each of the eight processes of our model was a relevant subprocess of standardization in each of the companies. Within these processes, practices of the different companies appeared to differ quite a lot, for example: ■ In one of the companies, the corporate policy included stand- ardization, in the other companies it did not. ■ Three of the six companies had a steering group for stand- ardization, which consisted of line managers. In all cases, the standardization manager was member of this group as well. ■ Two companies attached a “why document” to some of their company standards. This document provided the underpinning of the most important choicesdecisions that were made during standards development. Often, the authors of the standard were mentioned as well in this document.

11.4.5 Concept definition

Starting from the observed practices in the six companies, in a brain- storming session we formulated statements that expressed criteria that could be applied to each of these practices. Company standardization literature, scientific or professional, played a minor role in this brain- storm because, in general, this literature did not provide any guidance regarding best practice in company standardization. Examples of such statements that we generated are: ■ a best practice regarding standardization policy is that there is a clearly stated strategic policy on company standardization; ■ a best practice regarding company standards development is that there is a clear organizational framework for standards development and that top management participates in this framework e.g. in a steering group; ■ a best practice regarding company standard distribution is that a “why document” is attached to each company standard to provide the underpinning of the most important choices decisions that were made during standards development. In order to give an idea of how we developed such statements, we describe here how we arrived at the last mentioned best practice state- ment. One of the interviewees mentioned the example of a standard for durability of piping materials related to corrosion. Because a pipeline in a desert may be less susceptible to corrosion, applying the standard for such a pipeline may lead to an unnecessarily costly design. If there is a “why document” attached to the standard, in which it is explained that a specific treatment is standard and has to be applied in order to pre- vent corrosion, this might enable the standard user to decide not to fol- low the standard in specific conditions such as producing pipes for use in a desert. After having formulated this element of best practice, we were able to also find some support for it in the literature see Brown and Duguid, 1991: 45. We applied the criteria we had developed in this way to the practices that we had found in the six companies and chose from these practices those that met these criteria. The result of this procedure was a compre- hensive description of a best practice consisting of different elements from each of the six companies. Here we cannot present the entire best practice, as it is a detailed document of 42 pages Oly and Slob, 1999; summarized in De Vries, 2006. For some criteria, we did not find the best practice in any of the companies but only in the literature, or it was the result of our own brainstorm only. An example of the latter, a criter- ion that was our own invention, is a best practice for publishing of com- pany standards. Each of the six companies published standards on paper, some of them also on microfilm, and one of the companies on CD-ROM. We, however, considered publishing on the Intranet to be a best practice. At the time of our research 1999, the publication of company procedures in general on an Intranet, which is now very common, was not a standard practice in these six companies. After we had generated our proposal for a best practice for company standard development, we then wanted to assess for each part of this best practice the extent to which it was acceptable to practitioners. This was done by presenting the findings to the companies and asking them