No one needs standards
… as long as he lives alone in the jungle.
As soon as several parties work together common standards are indispensable.
Languages with a common understanding of the words and sentences were the precondition for human progress. Only common measures and weights have enabled efficient division of labor and industrialization.
The more parties are involved and the more processes are automated, the greater the importance of standards.
For a long time, this is not any more just about physical interoperability, but more and more about syntactic and semantics of data, models and quality of data, as well as processes and their interfaces.
In the meantime, individual companies are no longer competing, but rather whole supply chains. A key factor in the efficiency of these supply chains is the automation of material and data flow. The company-wide automatic identification takes a key position.
Adaptations of processes cost a lot of time and money. To ensure that these investments can be carried out in a targeted manner, it is important to know not only the usual practice of “today”, but also the “standards of tomorrow”.
In addition, in some cases it may be useful to influence the “standards of tomorrow” in such a way that the investments in the company’s own infrastructure pay off.
Standardization organizations are geographically organized (for example, DIN in Germany, CEN in Europe, ISO in the world) or industrialists (for example, Odette for automotive or EDIFICE for high-tech). For almost all applications, many standardization organizations are relevant. The large number of partly competing standardization organizations makes it difficult to recognize the really important norms and orient themselves to them.
The industry is faced with major challenges in the transformation to industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things. For the necessary investment in the expansion of automatic identification, decisions should not be made on the basis of half-knowledge, but the Council should also be called upon by an expert for the standards in this environment.
National standardization
Chairman of DIN NA 043-01-31 AA “Automatic Identification and Data Acquisition Procedures”
The task area of DIN NA 043-01-31 is the standardization of formats, syntax, structures and coding of data, as well as methods for data collection and processing with automatic identification, mainly for the processes in material flow and logistics. DIN NA 043-01-3 is the national mirror committee for ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 31, Automatic Identification and Data Capture Techniques.
Highlights include:
– the standardization of further rectangular data matrix sizes for very scal 2-dimensional symbols
– DIN SPEC 16589 Information technology – Automatic identification and data collection methods – Product-to-Internet communication Pointer to Process
This specification can be obtained from Beuth-Verlag.
– DIN SPEC 16599 Automatic Identification and Data Acquisition Methods – Traceability, which was developed under my project management and can be obtained from Beuth-Verlag.
Founding member of DIN NA 043-01-41 AA “Internet of Things”
DIN NA 043-01-41 AA “Internet of Things” was established as a national mirror committee for the ISO IEC JTC1 WG10 “Internet of Things”. Previously, this role had been taken over by DIN NA 043-01-31 AA.
A major contribution of DIN NA 043-01-41 AA to the international standardization of the IoT is the project management of Mr. Wei Wei (IBM Germany) for the preparation of the standard ISO / IEC 30141 “Reference Architecture to Internet of Things (IoT RA) “.
DIN regularly organizes international conferences for the standardization of IoT.
Member of DKE/AK 241.0.25 “Electronic Product Marking”
Member of DKE/AK 311.0.10 “Data Structures for Rotating Electrical Machines according to IEC 60034”
Member of DKE/AK 931.0.1 “Attributes”
Member of DKE/AK 931.0.14 “Smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0”
European standardization
Member of CEN TC225 “AIDC technologies”
CEN TC225 is the European Commission for the standardization of data carriers for automatic identification and data collection, the necessary structure of the data elements, necessary test specifications and technical features for cross-sectoral applications.
Chairman of CEN TC225 WG4 “Automatic ID applications”
Within CEN TC225, this working group is responsible for application standards for Europe. Recent projects were:
- European standard EN 17071 for an electronic type plate (including RFID)
- European standard for the RFID marking of railway vehicles
- European standard for the machine-readable labeling of fish and seafood packages in retail
Member in CEN / TC 225 / WG 01 “Optical Readable Media”
“Optical readable media” means barcodes and 2D codes. For this purpose, only ISO standards are increasingly being used and the activities in CEN TC225 WG4 are low.
EDIFICE ADC “Automatic Data Capture”
EDIFICE is a Global Network for B2B Integration in High Tech industries. It drives and enables Global standardized B2B adoption through best practice and information sharing and influencing of standards development. The Edifice workgroup ADC focusses on the implementation of machine readable markings in conjunction and in support of B2B.
I am co-author of these EDIFCIE ADC guidelines:
- GLOBAL UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION SCHEME
- OVERPACK LABEL, PRODUCT PACKAGE LABEL
- PRODUCT/PRODUCT PACKAGE LABEL IN EXTENDED SUPPLY CHAINS
- RFID WHITE PAPER
- SET LABEL
- SHIPMENT/TRANSPORT LABEL
- SYMBOLS USED ON LABELS FOR PRODUCTS AND PACKAGES.
You han download these guidelines here.
International standardization
Experts from the DIN mirror assemblies can be nominated for European standards as members for CEN, and for international standards as members of the ISO, as well as the joint committees of ISO and IEC.
Member of ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 31 “Automatic identification and data capture techniques”
ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 31 standardizes data formats, data syntax, data structures, data encoding and technologies for the processing of automatic identification and data collection, as well as related devices for use in intersectoral applications, international goods traffic and mobile applications.
Http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_technical_committee.html?commid=45332
Member ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 31 / WG 2 “Data and structure”
Within the ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 31, this workgroup is responsible for the syntax and semantics of data. This includes, for example, the “data transfer syntax” for the distribution of data packets into individual data elements, or the definition of “identifiers” with which the data elements are assigned a meaning (semantics).
Furthermore, requirements for data and their representation are defined for various applications, especially in supply chains.
Member of ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 31 / WG 4 “Radio communications”
Within the ISO / IEC JTC 1 / SC 31, this working group is responsible for identification and applications with RFID.
Member of ISO IEC JTC1 SC41 “Internet of Things”
This committee combines the activities of the ISO and the IEC for standardization in the area of Internet of Things. In this relatively “early” phase of IoT, the focus is still on foundations, such as a reference architecture and interoperability.
An important result so far is the standard “ISO / IEC 30141” reference architecture on Internet of things (IoT RA)