As of 1st May 2008
Prof. dr. Knut Blind has been awarded the Endowed Chair in Standardisation at RSM. Prof. Blind takes over the Chair from Prof. Dr. A. J. Feilzer. 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.
From the outset till July 2000, the chair was held by Prof.Dr.Ir. C.A.J. Simons. Support is provided by student assistant Najim Argam, Tom Degen and Deniz Kaan Bayramoglu, and by researcher Robert van Wessel.
Award for the world’s best education in standardisation
Rotterdam, September 2009 --- The Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, is the winner of this year's ISO Award for Higher Education in Standardisation. ISO is the International Organization for Standardization. The award was presented at the 32nd ISO General Assembly in Cape Town, South Africa.
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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.
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Standardisation Spurs Innovation: Inaugural Address by Knut Blind
Rotterdam, July 2009 --- On Friday 28 August, Professor
Knut Blind gave his Inaugural Address at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, on
”Standardisation as a Catalyst for Innovation.” An increasingly relevant topic in international business, accounting for 1% of GDP, standards have had a positive impact on nations’ economic growth, comparable to that of patents and other intellectual property rights. This inaugural address can be seen as Prof.dr. Blind’s official induction to the Endowed Chair of Standardisation at RSM, a post he has held since 1 May 2008. The Chair, created in 1994, is a partnership between the Netherlands Standardisation Institute (NEN) and RSM.
About his address:
Traditionally, standards have been perceived as contradicting innovation. However, this view has been overturned in recent years. Based on some fundamental definitions and an illustration of the generic economic effects of standards, the inaugural address will present the innovation-promoting impacts of standards in three different dimensions. In addition, possible barriers for the exploitation of these potentials and negative implications of the interaction between innovation and standardisation will also be examined. First, Blind addressed the relationship between research and standardisation. The role of standardisation and standards as effective channels of technology transfer was outlined. Additionally, the relevance of standards for research activities was illustrated. Second, he addressed the interaction between intellectual property rights, especially patents, and standards. Here, the integration of patents into standards broadens and fastens the diffusion of technological know-how. However, this interaction might be misused for strategies leading to a vicious and not-virtuous circle. Finally, standards can also play an innovation-promoting role in the procurement of innovative products. Here, Blind focused on the potential of standards for innovation oriented public procurement policies. The address closed with an outlook to future research challenges.
News and features
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).
In 2009, the chair initiated the Executive Course ‘Achieving Business Goals by Participation in International Standardisation[HV2] ’.The next course is scheduled for 29 and 30 November 2010.
Knut Blind and Henk de Vries established cooperation with Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Some questions on standards have been included in CBS’s Innovation Survey. This should provide data for relating standards and innovation.
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 Univeristy’s Chair of Standardisation and the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Graduate School of Technology Management[HV3] , and the China Jiliang University in Hangzhou[HV4] . A first meeting was held in Tokyo, 2008; in 2009 a Japanese delegation visited Rotterdam. The cooperation includes exchange of Master students. In 2010, Japanese students should get the possibility to join the Masters elective Innovation and Standardisation Management in Rotterdam and some participants in this elective can visit Japan.
In 2008, Henk de Vries was appointed Vice-president of the European Academy for Standardization EURAS[HV5] , special adviser for the International Federation of Standards Users IFAN[HV6] , member of the Editorial Board of the book series Advances in Information Technology Standards and Standardization Research, IGI Publishing, Hershey, PA, and member of the Editorial Board of the book series Verantwoording.
Knut Blind became member of the Expert Advisory Group on Innovation Strategy [HV7] of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD and the Expert panel for the Review of Standardisation EXPRESS [HV8] of the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry.
Masters student Pieter Verhagen has won the national best thesis award of quality managemennet 2008, organized by the Dutch Network on Quality Management, NNK. He was coached by dr.ir. H.J. de Vries. Pieter thesis focuses on the impact of standards on innovation of constructions – a case of energy performance standards for houses. Pieter presented his findings at a congress and at the scientific conference on Management of Technology EUROMOT 2008 In Sophia Antipolis, France. Findings have been published in the paper ‘De paradox tussen innovatie en standaardisatie’ in the professional journal Synaps, Vol. 7 No. 26, October 2008. This was the chair’s third success in succession. In 2007, winner was Henry Vroege. He analysed non-conformities the Dutch Council for Accreditation found during audits of certification bodies involved in ISO 9001 certification. Henry presented his findings at a congress and based on his thesis two publications in professional journals were made: Synaps, Vol. 5 No. 23, July 2007, and Sigma, Vol. 53 No. 5, October 2007.
Henry was coached by Prof.Dr.ing. T.W. Hardjono and Henk de Vries. In 2006, another Masters student, Ries Haverkamp, was number 2 in the national best thesis award competition on quality management. His thesis concerned process standardization in a factory. Ries used a Christian-philosophical approach. An article on his thesis has been published in Synaps, Vol. 4 No. 20, July 2006.
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. Our main publications are the books
Standardization - A Business Approach to the Role of National Standardization Organizations.
Education
- Bachelor Thesis Projects on Standardisation 'Standaard of maatwerk'
- Master Elective Business Process Management
- 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
- Costs and benefits of company standardization
- 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
- Customer involvement in innovation for public transport
- Standards for qualification of innovation managers
- Factors for standard's 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 developing countries
- Conformity assessment
- Assessment of virtual products
- Reliability of certification
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 within The Netherlands
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,
Utrecht, 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.
International co-operation
At the international level we participate in
EURAS, the European Academy for Standardization. EURAS is an organization of researchers in the area of standardization. Henk de Vries is vice-president of EURAS.
In education as well as research we have co-operated with our colleagues of the chair in standardization at the Helmut-Schmidt-Universität Hamburg.
Other international contacts include:
- the International Committee for Education about Standardization (
ICES) - member
-
the European Union, DG Enterprise;
- OECD – Kut Blind is member of the Expert Advisory Group of the OECD Innovation Strategy;
- DIN – German national standards institute: - Knut Blind is member of the Board of the technical Committee “Basics of Standardisation Work”;
- International Federation of Standards Users IFAN – Henk de Vries is Special Advisor;
- Societu for Social Politics – Knut Blind is member of the Committee for Industrial Economics.
Standardization journals and book series
Scientific journals that are devoted to standardization:
- EURAS Yearbook of Standardization. Special issues of Homo Oeconomicus, Accedo Verlaggesellschaft,
Munich;
- International Journal on IT Standards & Standardization Research (both Knut Blind and henk de vries are members of the editorial Review Board).
-
Computer, Standards & Interfaces
Books series on Standardization:
General information on standardization
