2413. Rebuilding Your Company’s Technology

Paper

Abstract

The internal development of a software tool to help in the standardization of mass properties determination and reporting can offset various costs if standards exist. Companies involved with weight and mass properties on a regular basis require standard tools and processes for many important reasons. However, cutbacks within the industry have taken a toll on many of these tools, with work-arounds becoming common place. Fortunately, organized groups have started to form strategies that will re- establish these lost tools and skills while remaining within budgetary constraints. Our everyday workplace is so filled with military standards and specifications, standard tools, and standard manufacturing processes that when a lack of them do occur it is very disconcerting. Society, in general, has grown to expect tools, devices, systems, and processes that perform the same way industry-wide. The personal computer industry is probably the most popular example and looming on the horizon is digital television. In the engineering world, people rely on standards for tools, compatibility of materials, and even presentation of results, to name a few. They are also important for internal communications, engineering productivity, and corporate efficiency. Standards can even assist in determining when analytical results are ”good enough.” But without this basis for evaluation, things are left in the air. Typically it is not an internal decision to disregard the norm, but more of a reaction to the environment which includes corporate consolidation.