Learn how digital transformation data can enable successful projects

The digital transformation of standards enables engineers to innovate more effectively.

By Jim Thomas June 21, 2024
Courtesy: Accuris

 

Learning Objectives

  • Learn how standards development organizations are embracing digital transformation.
  • Understand that software as a service platforms are central to the work of integrating the digital transformation of standards into engineering workflows.
  • Know how to better streamline processes, trim costs, earn and maintain market access and boost the bottom line of a manufacturing plant.

Digital transformation insights

  • By embracing digital transformation, standards development organizations (SDOs) can sift through vast information systems efficiently. This allows for greater knowledge-sharing across massive sets of content to develop standards more quickly to innovate more effectively.
  • As the pace of change speeds up, the engineering ecosystem will increasingly rely on digital transformation to evolve faster, to develop standards more efficiently and to find expert insights more easily. Solutions will require tools that are trained on engineering data, enabling the technology to deliver unparalleled insights, facilitate discoveries and seamlessly connect information for the engineering workflows of the 21st century.

As the world moves to embrace a more sustainable future, engineers working in governments organizations and enterprises are looking to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for direction. While the SDGs provide the goal posts, how can engineers move closer to those goals by developing more sustainable solutions?

Enter the digital transformation of standards. Standards development organizations (SDOs) are adopting digital transformation measures to help engineers chart the path forward. Professionals can now use these measures to sift through vast information systems efficiently. They can knowledge-share across massive sets of content and develop standards more quickly to innovate more effectively.

The role of standards in engineering

Engineers depend on SDOs for the technical, industry and scientific standards that ensure their products and services are consistent, compatible, safe and marketable. The problem, however, is that engineers looking online for a work-related standard can easily end up with hundreds of thousands of results from 15 to 20 different SDOs — without even including the millions of patents that may also be surfaced.

The amount of information, whether unique or duplicative, is overwhelming. And this adds steep obstacles to the paths of engineers working to develop innovative and sustainable products and services. Leading SDOs are therefore adopting digital transformation to help engineers embrace sustainability and work more effectively.

Beyond simply bringing in new technology or increasing efficiency, digital transformation means, according to Forbes, “new ways of solving problems, of creating unique experiences for customers and employees and of accelerating business performance.” As engineers tap into the digital transformation of standards organizations are better able to streamline processes, trim costs, earn and maintain market access and boost their bottom line.

Figure 1: Engineering Workbench by Accuris surfaces the knowledge engineers need in seconds, pulling from the world’s largest collection of specs and standards from nearly 200 publishers.

Figure 1: Engineering Workbench by Accuris surfaces the knowledge engineers need in seconds, pulling from the world’s largest collection of specs and standards from nearly 200 publishers. Courtesy: Accuris

How digital transformation is changing engineering standards

Software as a service platforms are central to the work of integrating the digital transformation of standards into engineering workflows. With advanced platforms, engineering and technical professionals are empowered to make sense of their standards data more quickly and effectively. They can make their workflows faster and more efficient. And they can easily access the global standards and technical content they need, with deep learning algorithms that help surface the right information.

Sifting through vast information systems is made possible with artificial intelligence technology that can automatically generate tens of millions of embedded industry-to-industry reference links that are found in-line across codes and standards documents from hundreds of SDOs. This powerful technology reduces the time to do research, helping engineers easily understand how codes and standards are interconnected.

Knowledge-sharing across massive sets of content enables engineers to create shareable links to entire standards and codes documents, document pages and specific passages within that document. This technology helps teams collaborate more effectively because a user can easily share links with a teammate for referenced content within any document.

Developing standards more quickly enables engineers to innovate more effectively. When SDOs look to create new standards to address U.N. SDGs, they need to be aware of the present standards environment. SDOs must make sure they are not duplicating efforts with other SDOs to create standards. Digital transformation allows SDOs access to disparate information and enables them connect the dots to create future standards more effectively in terms of time and money.

As the pace of change speeds up, the engineering ecosystem will increasingly rely on digital transformation to evolve faster, to develop standards more efficiently and to find expert insights more easily. Solutions will require tools that are trained on engineering data, enabling the technology to deliver unparalleled insights, facilitate discoveries and seamlessly connect information for the engineering workflows of the 21st century.


Author Bio: Jim Thomas is the chief partnership officer for Accuris.