V
Vitor Finkel
After following closely such controversial shootout on ISA's ability to generate standards, and spent & trying to recover money while doing it, from my personal status as a member, I decided to do what Walt kept saying is our privilege to do.
I asked to ISA's staff to supply some explanations on what ( and how ) is it going on, and provide some figures to help understand the answers.
This is what they came up with as an answer to my questions, so let me share it with you guys:
o The ISA S&P program has two main components:
(1) Development of standards (administration of the work and communication of the nearly 150 committees that are active at any one time in ISA). In 2000, this effort has three full-time equivalent staff and a total cost (almost no revenue) of $575K, of which $445K (77%) is staff-related (salaries, benefits, overhead). This cost has been reduced significantly (by nearly one-third) since 1998.
(2) Publication and distribution of developed standards (about 130 are currently actively distributed). In 2000, this activity has about $550K of revenue and $425K of expense for $125K of net. Staff-related costs are about 66% of the expenses here.
o The total S&P program of ISA costs about $1.0 M/year, with a net cost to the Society of about $450K a year. Solely through cost reduction (because sales have been declining), this deficit has been reduced from ~$700K in 1998. But we have reached the limit of gains through cost reduction. Further cost reduction would reduce the level of the program (number of standards developed and administered).
o It is the development costs that most people can't see, and often don't understand how much effort goes into the administration of a big program like ISA's, or even into an individual committee's work. All of the technical work is indeed done by volunteers, but most, if not all of the administrative work is done by ISA.
o ISA's costs, and distribution of costs among staff and other expenses, are in line with what other Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs)have.
o Financially, the goal of ISA's S&P program is to operate on a break-even basis, NOT to make any positive profit. Companies are the true beneficiary of strong standards program, which indirectly benefits our individual members who work for the companies. The issue we are working now is how to recover the total cost from the parties that directly benefit from the ISA standards program.
o ISA's standards have wide use and are considered a very important part of what the society does, but do not have a big potential sales market.
The Society conducts the program as an essential part of its mission. But the high net cost of the program, which primarily benefits companies, needs to be recovered in some way. Raising standards prices is one way, but not desirable. We welcome any constructive advice on how to make the program breakeven, which is our goal.
OK, this roughly matched ( sometimes surpassed ) my expectations, and loose pieces of information I already heard about. It surely matches the policy we members ask our staff to implement. Staff surely is trying to implement Policy as determined by the proper committees, within "real
world" constraints. No "Santa Clauss wish list, free meals, etc allowed here".
I think it only proves you can not really judge
someone else's work unless you try to undertake it yourself. I don't believe anyone that never took active part into developing a standard can easily imagine the amount of organizational and administrative "behind the scenes" work involved. Sometimes I think we are so naive about the unseen work in this activity as an 8 years old boy watching an experienced pilot to fly a Boeing.
"That's easy, ...I could do it, all you need is to taxi it to the head of the runway, push the thrusts forward and wait until it takes off. Once in the air, turn the nose into the direction you want to fly and wait till you get there. Reduce your speed, lower the landing gear and flaps, align with a landing strip and let it go down graciously to a touch down, then taxi it back to the guy with the two flashlights.
Easy, cheap, safe, anyone can do it....,no big deal, I wander why they need to keep so many guys on their payroll just to do that..."... "Oh, why so many panels full of switches, lights and indicators in the cockpit ? Well, I would not really need to use them, they are not really necessary just to fly..."
Of course we can always imagine this huge administrative task could be made more efficiently... also anyone involved into generating standards can point out several cases where things did not run exactly as well as expected....but who really knows or may evaluate how efficient ISA is at it ? I can't even grasp all that is really involved when 150 committees with (what ?) maybe some 50 members each ( 7500 individuals ) start to generate correspondence ( some by e-mail, some by fax, by snail-mail, even hand delivered ) that has to be classified,
copied, filed, distributed, generates secondary comments by other committee members, and all this should be consolidated, included in the revised drafts, copied, printed, re-distributed before certain deadlines for meetings, evaluated and commented by peers, filed for future references, etc.... Just handling this correspondence without loosing or misplacing any of it, seems to me to be more than enough to fulfill the 3 assigned staff persons with work. Generating the notes of meetings, when the 3 staff persons should ideally be present to all simultaneous committee meetings during the ISA President Meetings and other occasions also seems to be simply an impossible task. God knows how they can handle it, but we can always complain that they should do it better... lower costs, narrow time frames, less mistakes, etc... There is no end to what we may think or wish about those largely unknown and unappreciated tasks involved.
Now, anyone with a bright idea about how could we generate and distribute free standards ? I'd really like to see that. I also want my free standards CD-ROM as much as anyone else. How about the Instruments Standard
Foundation ? I heard it is already working. Dave Rapley and a group of volunteers and staff are working at it, and donations are already being
accepted. I don't have an e-mail for details or snail-mail address to whom you may sent your company checks, but if someone cares to ask for it, I'll surely dig one and inform it to the list.
Vitor Finkel
I asked to ISA's staff to supply some explanations on what ( and how ) is it going on, and provide some figures to help understand the answers.
This is what they came up with as an answer to my questions, so let me share it with you guys:
o The ISA S&P program has two main components:
(1) Development of standards (administration of the work and communication of the nearly 150 committees that are active at any one time in ISA). In 2000, this effort has three full-time equivalent staff and a total cost (almost no revenue) of $575K, of which $445K (77%) is staff-related (salaries, benefits, overhead). This cost has been reduced significantly (by nearly one-third) since 1998.
(2) Publication and distribution of developed standards (about 130 are currently actively distributed). In 2000, this activity has about $550K of revenue and $425K of expense for $125K of net. Staff-related costs are about 66% of the expenses here.
o The total S&P program of ISA costs about $1.0 M/year, with a net cost to the Society of about $450K a year. Solely through cost reduction (because sales have been declining), this deficit has been reduced from ~$700K in 1998. But we have reached the limit of gains through cost reduction. Further cost reduction would reduce the level of the program (number of standards developed and administered).
o It is the development costs that most people can't see, and often don't understand how much effort goes into the administration of a big program like ISA's, or even into an individual committee's work. All of the technical work is indeed done by volunteers, but most, if not all of the administrative work is done by ISA.
o ISA's costs, and distribution of costs among staff and other expenses, are in line with what other Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs)have.
o Financially, the goal of ISA's S&P program is to operate on a break-even basis, NOT to make any positive profit. Companies are the true beneficiary of strong standards program, which indirectly benefits our individual members who work for the companies. The issue we are working now is how to recover the total cost from the parties that directly benefit from the ISA standards program.
o ISA's standards have wide use and are considered a very important part of what the society does, but do not have a big potential sales market.
The Society conducts the program as an essential part of its mission. But the high net cost of the program, which primarily benefits companies, needs to be recovered in some way. Raising standards prices is one way, but not desirable. We welcome any constructive advice on how to make the program breakeven, which is our goal.
OK, this roughly matched ( sometimes surpassed ) my expectations, and loose pieces of information I already heard about. It surely matches the policy we members ask our staff to implement. Staff surely is trying to implement Policy as determined by the proper committees, within "real
world" constraints. No "Santa Clauss wish list, free meals, etc allowed here".
I think it only proves you can not really judge
someone else's work unless you try to undertake it yourself. I don't believe anyone that never took active part into developing a standard can easily imagine the amount of organizational and administrative "behind the scenes" work involved. Sometimes I think we are so naive about the unseen work in this activity as an 8 years old boy watching an experienced pilot to fly a Boeing.
"That's easy, ...I could do it, all you need is to taxi it to the head of the runway, push the thrusts forward and wait until it takes off. Once in the air, turn the nose into the direction you want to fly and wait till you get there. Reduce your speed, lower the landing gear and flaps, align with a landing strip and let it go down graciously to a touch down, then taxi it back to the guy with the two flashlights.
Easy, cheap, safe, anyone can do it....,no big deal, I wander why they need to keep so many guys on their payroll just to do that..."... "Oh, why so many panels full of switches, lights and indicators in the cockpit ? Well, I would not really need to use them, they are not really necessary just to fly..."
Of course we can always imagine this huge administrative task could be made more efficiently... also anyone involved into generating standards can point out several cases where things did not run exactly as well as expected....but who really knows or may evaluate how efficient ISA is at it ? I can't even grasp all that is really involved when 150 committees with (what ?) maybe some 50 members each ( 7500 individuals ) start to generate correspondence ( some by e-mail, some by fax, by snail-mail, even hand delivered ) that has to be classified,
copied, filed, distributed, generates secondary comments by other committee members, and all this should be consolidated, included in the revised drafts, copied, printed, re-distributed before certain deadlines for meetings, evaluated and commented by peers, filed for future references, etc.... Just handling this correspondence without loosing or misplacing any of it, seems to me to be more than enough to fulfill the 3 assigned staff persons with work. Generating the notes of meetings, when the 3 staff persons should ideally be present to all simultaneous committee meetings during the ISA President Meetings and other occasions also seems to be simply an impossible task. God knows how they can handle it, but we can always complain that they should do it better... lower costs, narrow time frames, less mistakes, etc... There is no end to what we may think or wish about those largely unknown and unappreciated tasks involved.
Now, anyone with a bright idea about how could we generate and distribute free standards ? I'd really like to see that. I also want my free standards CD-ROM as much as anyone else. How about the Instruments Standard
Foundation ? I heard it is already working. Dave Rapley and a group of volunteers and staff are working at it, and donations are already being
accepted. I don't have an e-mail for details or snail-mail address to whom you may sent your company checks, but if someone cares to ask for it, I'll surely dig one and inform it to the list.
Vitor Finkel