CHAPTER X
CONCLUSION

Most desirable standards, grades, and informative labels have been developed through a certain amount of cooperation by interested groups. Experience tends to demonstrate that there are a few significant factors which need to be observed in such activities if standards, grades, and informative labels are to be well adapted for the purposes they are designed to serve: There should be a fair representation of all substantially interested groups; full and objective consideration should be given to all pertinent data and situations; provisions should be made to safeguard the soundness of standards before they are approved; participants should be willing to first consider the simple or less controversial factors in developing a standard; an adequate educational program should be planned to promote the development of a suitable standard and its use when adopted; and finally, provision needs to be made for revision of a standard when experience and technological developments indicate the need for such a revision.

Due to the generally recognized importance of standards in the defense preparedness program, it seems appropriate to recall the experiences of the Conservation Division of the War Industries Board so well summarized by Bernard M. Baruch, Chairman of the War Industries Board:

The experience of the Conservation Division has clearly demonstrated that there are many practices in American industry which cost the ultimate consumers in the aggregate enormous sums without enriching the producers. These are often due to competitive demands, real or assumed. Many salesmen, in order to please the whims of particular customers, will insist upon the manufacture of new styles or new shapes of articles, requiring increased expense to the manufacturers and increased expense to both wholesalers and retailers in carrying more lines of stock; these in turn causing increased expense in maintaining salesmen and providing them with samples as well as in advertising. The consumer, the general public, is no better served by the satisfaction of these unreasonable demands, but the public ultimately pays the bill. We may well draw from this war experience a lesson to be applied to peace, by providing some simple machinery for eliminating wasteful trade practices which increase prices without in the remotest degree contributing to the well-being of the people. There is enough natural wealth in this Country, and there is enough labor and technical skill for converting that wealth into objects of human satisfaction to provide abundantly for the elemental comforts of every person in the land. The problem before our Nation today is to bring about such adjustments of the industrial processes as lead toward that long-sought condition of life.1

"American Industry in the War, a Report of the War Industries Board," by Bernard M. Baruch, Chairman, p. 69, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1921.

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APPENDIX

NOMENCLATURE OF STANDARDS

Although this study deals primarily with consumer standards, it was thought advisable, in addition to the definitions of basic terms. given in Chapter I, to present in the following pages some of the most important terms used in discussing problems of standardization of commodities and services. While no attempt is made to present a standard classification system, the following categories may serve as an indication of the major groups in the field of commodity and service standards:

I. Producer Goods Standards

II. Distributor and Marketing Standards

III. Consumer Goods Standards

IV. Standard Codes, Rules, and Regulations

In the establishment of standards applicable to the above groups, the following factors may be considered:

Scope:

Local

National

International

Establishing Agency:

Company

Association:

Trade

Technical

Professional

Government:

Processes

Definitions are given in alphabetical order, since some of these terms may apply to different groups.

GLOSSARY

Active Standards: See Status of Standards.

Adoption of Standards: See Tentative Standards; Officially Adopted Standards.

Association Standards: "These may be standard practices that have grown in the trade; or they may be formally issued by organized groups, such as trade association. "2 technical and professional

societies.

"In a great number of cases a standard may be of . . ." importance". only to a particular consumer interest and to the producer of the product covered. In such cases the standard is likely to remain in the group or association stage.

"3

Building Standards: See Construction Standards; Practice, Standards of.

Codes, Standard: See Practice, Standards of.

Company Standards: "These may be purchase specifications for the products the company buys, or company standards for the products it sells. These latter may take the form of trade brands. (The degree of uniformity of a product sold under a trade brand means there is a standard of some kind. This is true even though this standard be changed arbitrarily from time to time, thus changing the quality of goods sold under the brand name.) They are usually called private brands if they are established by retailers; national brands, if they are established by manufacturers." Composition Standards: Standards designating the elements of which a material or a product is composed, and the proportions in which these elements are combined, such as, fiber content of textiles, chemical content of drugs, carbon content of steel, and so forth. Construction Standards: Tell how the product is made and include requirements for shape, style, strength, finish, method of manufacture, workmanship; also "Size, weight, number of yarns per inch, weave, number of stitches per inch, finish, ply, cut, hand or machine made, pressed, molded, stamped, inlaid, etc." 5 Definitions, Standard: See also Identity, Standards of.

"A definition and standard of identity strictly defines the composition of a product, as well as its name."

"Standard Definitions-Standards for identification serve as the basis for describing particular characteristics in such a way that

2 "Functional Steps in the Development, Promulgation and Use of Standards for Consumer Goods," by P. G. Agnew, p. 1, American Standards Association, New York City, December 28, 1939, mimeographed.

3 "National Standardization in America," by P. G. Agnew, Industrial Standardization and Commercial Standards Monthly, vol. 4 (7), p. 112, July 1933.

"Functional Steps in the Development, Promulgation and Use of Standards for Consumer Goods," by P. G. Agnew, p. 1, American Standards Association, New York City, December 28, 1939, mimeographed.

5 "Informative Labeling," by Committee on Informative Labeling, p. 4, ConsumerRetailer Relations Council, New York City, 1938.

"Labels for Canned Foods," p. 13, National Canners Association, Washington, D. C., August 6, 1940.