Standards media and methods

• Published in: Automation in construction 1999, Vol.8 (4), p.473-479
• Main Author: Wright, Richard N
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Information technologies; Input data
• ISSN: 0926-5805
• DOI: 10.1016/S0926-5805(98)00094-6

The global marketplace and advances in information technologies are leading to great changes in standards. These include growing reliance on international standards, new standards-development techniques, and new media and environments in which standards are expressed. Both general and project-specific information are being stored in and accessed from distributed, electronic, object-oriented databases. Standards available from general-purpose information systems will be capable of accessing and processing data to evaluate compliance with their provisions. Such standards will be convenient and efficient: input data will be accessed automatically from pertinent fields of the general and project-specific databases; results of evaluations will be recorded automatically in the project-specific database and used in decisions affecting design, construction or operation of constructed facilities. Major uses of standards will be associated with computer-aided systems and major revenues from uses of standards will accrue to systems developers and users. Standards-developing organizations should respond to this marketplace by themselves producing standards in the form of executable objects. Computer aids can assist in the formulation and expression of standards that are complete in coverage of the intended scope, consistent and unambiguous in their logic, and correct in reproducing the intent of the formulators.