When to Constrain the Design? Application of Design Standards on a New Development Program

Abstract

Use of design and construction standards have many benefits when trying to meet expectations on product safety and quality ‐ they help ensure commonality and consistency of approaches to design, manufacturing, test and verification. However, the use of standards can drive cost and inhibit innovation for certain applications. This leads to the question of when is it appropriate to constrain the design and apply standards on a program? This paper looks at the typical usage of design and construction standards across three different industries to evaluate when their usage enables projects, and when they drive cost. This paper provides the conclusion that optimization of a project for cost, technical and schedule is best served when standards are limited to industries with common products in a highly regulated domain. Usage of standards is not a “one size fits all” approach, and alternate strategies exist for industries in cases where limiting the design solution could impact ability to realize cost effective, innovative designs.