Chair in Standardisation

As of 1st May 2008 Prof. dr. Knut Blind has been awarded the Endowed Chair in Standardisation at RSM. Associate Professor is Dr.Ir. H.J. de Vries.

Since January 1994, the Erasmus University Rotterdam has hosted a Chair in Standardisation. This chair has been made possible by NEN- Netherlands Standardisation Institute (untill 2000 known as NNI). Though the city where NEN is located, Delft, has a famous technical university, the chair was created in the neigbouring city of Rotterdam, at Erasmus University's Rotterdam School of Management. This has been done to stress the strategic importance of standardisation for companies. The chair is situated within the department of Management of Technology and Innovation, section Business Process Management.

Support is provided by student assistant Najim Argam, and by researcher Dr. Ir. Robert van Wessel.

News and features

Course ‘Achieving Business Goals by Participation in International Standardisation, 29-30 November 2010, Rotterdam.


Meeting or not meeting certain standards can mean the difference between success and failure in business. This course aims to enhance the effectiveness of your participation in international standardisation. The course provides you with the tools to exert influence in the realisation of standards. You will learn to make underpinned choices about which standardisation projects your company should participate in. After completing this course you will be better able to achieve business goals by participating in international. The course is intended for:

  • Participants at Technical Committee level in international standardisation
  • Members of professional societies like IEEE and ASTM
  • Participants in industrial consortia


See for more information www.openprogrammes.com/standardisation.

Henk de Vries joins ICES Board

Geneva, 7 July 2010 - Dr. Ir. Henk de Vries has been elected in the Board of ICES, the International Cooperation on Education about Standardization.  Read more.

Award for best doctoral thesis in Quality Management in the Netherlands

Rotterdam, June 2010 --- Dr. Geerten van de Kaa has won the Research Award Quality Management 2010, organized by the Dutch Network for Quality Management (NNK). The award has been handed over during the Business Improvement Event on June 4th in Amersfoort. Van de Kaa defended his dissertation last year at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. He now works at Delft University of Technology as an assistant professor at the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, section Technology, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship. Read more...

Award for the world’s best education in standardisation


Rotterdam, September 2009 --- The Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, is the winner of the ISO Award for Higher Education in Standardisation 2009. ISO is the International Organization for Standardization. The award was presented at the 32nd ISO General Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa. Read more...

Award for best doctoral thesis in Information Management

in Flanders and the Netherlands

Rotterdam, October 2009 --- On October 9, Robert van Wessel received the Aart Bosman Prize for his thesis on the effects in organisations of the use of IT standards. In his thesis, entitled ‘Realizing Business Benefits from Company IT Standardization’, Van Wessel describes the unexplored field of the consequences of using IT standards in companies. The thesis is regarded as a major step forwards in the discussion around IT standards. Robert works part-time at RSM’s Chair of Standardisation and studies the business impact of international standards for information security management, using the model developed in his thesis. Read more...

SME access to standards and standardisation

Henk de Vries finished a project on SME access to European standardisation for the European Standardisation Organisations CEN and CENELEC. The project was carried out in cooperation with Knut Blind and Axel Mangelsdorf (Technical University Berlin, Germany), Hugo Verheul (Stenden Hogeschool, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands) and Jappe van der Zwan (NEN – Netherlands Standardization Institute, Delft). CEN and CENELEC and their national members have agreed to implement the recommendations. Read more.  


Research

The chair studies standardisation from a business point of view. Our research concerns the standardisation phenomenon as such, without a specialisation on certain topics. This is reflected in the research output in the form of publications - see our personal websites.

Education

  • Bachelor Thesis Projects on Standardisation 'Standaard of maatwerk'
  • Master Elective Business Process Excellence
  • Masters Elective Innovation and Standardisation Management
  • Master Thesis Projects.

Master Thesis / Internships

Master students can devote their Masters thesis to standardisation. Some recent topics:

  • Participation in international standardisation
    • Effectiveness of participation
    • Cost and benefits of participation
    • Stakeholder involvement
  • Costs and benefits of company standardisation
  • Company Standardisation
    • Best Practice Model
    • Benefits and Cost
  • Standardisation to support knowledge management
  • Business Processes management
    • Asphalt road construction
    • Warehouse management
  • Models and standards for management systems
    • Role of consultants in market acceptance of management system standards
    • Evaluation of the ISO guides on customer focus
  • Standards for services
    • Facility management
    • Safety standards for big events
    • Restaurants
    • Drinking water in Indonesia
  • Product variety management
    • Developing a systematic approach
    • Use of labels in supply chains
  • Impact of standardisation on innovation
    • National standard on facility management
    • National standards on energy performance of houses
    • Standards for road pricing
  • Innovation process
    • Standards for crowd sourcing
    • Standardisation of the innovation process
    • Standards for qualification of innovation managers
  • Factors for standards dominance
    • Impact of backwards compatibility on standards dominance
    • Impact of marketing communication on standards dominance
    • Predicting dominance
    • Factors for multiple designs 
  • Performance improvement of national standardisation organisations
    • Barriers for benefiting from standards and standardisation – the cases of Turkey and The Netherlands
    • Open standardization    
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
    • Standards for Socially Responsible Purchasing
    • Stakeholder involvement in Brazil
  • Conformity assessment
    • Assessment of virtual products
    • Reliability of certification
    • Consumer Impact of marks and conformity 


Students can combine this with an internship. The organisations vary from small enterprises to big multinationals, from start-ups to century-old companies, from not-for-profit and government to profit, and from Dutch to Belgian, German and Indonesian.


Co-operation


Co-operation in The Netherlands

This chair receives support from NEN- Netherlands Standardisation Institute and has a close cooperation with NEN including common research projects. Several graduates have become NEN employees.

The chair facilitates a network of researchers on standardization and certification in The Netherlands, with researchers from the universities of Amsterdam(Vrije Universiteit), Delft, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Rotterdam, Tilburg, Wageningen and Brugge (Belgium).

Within The Netherlands we are in close contact with:

  • the Dutch standards users organisation NKN (membership);
  • the Dutch national standards body NEN;
  • the Dutch Network for Quality Management NNK (membership);
  • the Dutch Academy for Quality (member);
  • the standardisation specialists within the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs;
  • Statistics Netherlands.
  • Philips and many other companies and non-profit organisations.

International co-operation

At the international level we participate in EURAS, the European Academy for Standardisation. EURAS is an organisation of researchers in the area of standardisation. Henk de Vries is vice-president of EURAS.

On invitation of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, a cooperation on standardisation education and research has been established between Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University’s Chair of Standardisation and the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Graduate School of Technology Management, and the China Jiliang University in Hangzhou.

Other international contacts include:


More about standards and standardisation


Journals and Book Series

Scientific journals that are devoted to standardisation:


Books series on standardisation:



General information on standardisation