How can you use international engineering design standards and guidelines?

1 Why use international standards and guidelines?

Using international standards and guidelines can benefit you as an engineer in several ways. First, they can help you ensure that your design meets the requirements and expectations of your clients, stakeholders, and users, as well as the legal and ethical obligations of your profession. Second, they can help you communicate and collaborate more effectively with other engineers, suppliers, manufacturers, and testers, who may have different backgrounds, cultures, or languages. Third, they can help you enhance your creativity and innovation, by providing you with a framework and a reference for solving complex and challenging problems.

2 How to find relevant standards and guidelines?

When looking for international standards and guidelines for engineering design, depending on your field, domain, or project, you can find many sources. For example, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) publishes standards for quality management, environmental management, risk management, and product design. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) offers standards for electrical, electronic, and related technologies. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) provides standards for electrical engineering, computer engineering, software engineering, and related disciplines such as networking, security, robotics, and artificial intelligence. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) publishes standards for mechanical engineering such as pressure vessels, piping, boilers, and pumps. Likewise, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) offers standards for materials, products, systems, and services like metals, plastics, ceramics, textiles and fuels. You can search online databases or libraries such as the ISO Online Browsing Platform, the IEC Webstore, the IEEE Xplore Digital Library, the ASME Standards Collection or the ASTM Standards and Engineering Digital Library to find these international standards and guidelines.

3 How to apply standards and guidelines to your design?

Applying international standards and guidelines to your design is not a straightforward process, so it's important to understand the purpose, scope, and content of the standards and guidelines that are relevant to your design. To do this, you should first identify the needs and expectations of your clients, stakeholders, and users, as well as any legal or ethical obligations of your profession. Then you should review the existing standards and guidelines applicable to your design and select the ones that are most suitable for your design goals. After that, you should interpret and implement the standards and guidelines in your design using appropriate methods, tools, and techniques such as design thinking, prototyping, testing, and validation. Additionally, it's important to document and communicate your design decisions and rationale using the standards and guidelines as references. Finally, evaluate and improve your design using the standards and guidelines as benchmarks. Don't forget to seek feedback from peers, experts, and reviewers.

4 What are the challenges and limitations of using standards and guidelines?

Using international standards and guidelines for engineering design can present some challenges and limitations, such as availability and accessibility, relevance and applicability, compatibility and consistency, and flexibility and adaptability. To address these issues, you need to use your judgment, critical thinking, and creativity, while also seeking the advice of mentors, colleagues, and experts. Factors like cost, copyright, language, novelty, complexity, uncertainty, rigidity, specificity, and prescriptiveness can all impact the availability and relevancy of standards. Additionally, differences in definitions, terminology or assumptions can lead to incompatibilities or inconsistencies.

5 How to learn more about standards and guidelines?

If you want to learn more about international standards and guidelines for engineering design, there are several resources and opportunities available. You can look into courses and workshops, such as those offered by ISO Academy, IEC Academy, IEEE Standards University, ASME Learning and Development, or ASTM Training and E-Learning. Reading books and articles, like those listed by ISO Bibliography, IEC Publications, IEEE Standards Association, ASME Standards and Certification, or ASTM Publications can also be beneficial. Additionally, joining networks and communities hosted by ISO Technical Committees, IEC Technical Committees, IEEE Societies and Communities, ASME Membership and Divisions, or ASTM Committees can connect you with other engineers who use international standards and guidelines for engineering design.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?