Writing A Brief

ISO - International Organization for Standardization

History - Created on February 23rd 1947, with the headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland). Idea of standardizing started way back in the 1800's with Henry Maudslay, who started intracompany standardization of screw threads to reduce costs and allow for interchangeability.

Why - Created during WW1 to allow international trade of products and machinery, because incongruent standards can be barriers to trade.

(Example: You buy a table from Germany and one of the screws gets

rusted and breaks. To repair the table again you would need to get

screw all the way from Germany. ISO allows you to buy the screw

from here for a cheaper price)

Brief - To equalize and standardize sizes of machine parts so that people globally are able to purchase products and fix them using locally available parts.

(Idea of interchangeability, Globalization. Environmental regulations, greater marketability, higher quality of goods and services, increased levels of safety.)

Advantages - Leads to globalization of industries. Reduces cost. Helps environment.

Disadvantages - Globalization of industries produces market pressure in favor of phasing out minority standards. Minority standards may be indigenous, which uses locally available products.

Opportunity - This can be used to spread services and greatly improve global trade.

Threat - MNC's