A trade standard is only useful if it is written, testable, owned and reviewed: it states the requirement, the test that proves it, the basis for the figure and the date it will next be reviewed. Where the village cannot verify a claim itself, for example the strength of a pressure vessel, the standard must borrow a recognised code or a certified existing article and say so, rather than inventing a figure that the community has no means to check.
Part of System Governance
Writing and enforcing trade standards, testing work against them, and learning from failures without turning the standards board into a source of arbitrary rules.
Objective Standards Prevent Arguments
The carrier says quality standards should be written wherever possible, with examples: “a functional chair must support 120 kg without failure”, “a water filter must produce clear water with no visible particles”. Objective standards prevent arguments. The board that approves master promotions and settles disputes about work quality is the natural keeper of them: three to five senior practitioners who also look for skill gaps.
The Guilds and Associations article assigns the guild the job of quality assurance: when a practitioner’s work causes harm, such as a collapsed building, a treatment that went badly wrong or ceramics that crack in the kiln, the guild investigates, and that investigation is learning and not punishment. The Failure Diagnosis article treats a failed part as evidence. Together these describe a feedback loop: standard, work, test, failure, investigation, revised standard.
What A Standard Must Contain
- Scope: what it applies to.
- Requirement: the thing to be achieved, in measurable terms.
- Test: how anyone can check it, and with what.
- Basis: where the requirement came from. A measured result, a code, a certified example, or “board judgement, to be revisited”.
- Owner: the named person or board.
- Review date: standards go out of date as practice changes.
The basis line is the one that keeps a standard honest. The corpus has learned the cost of unsourced figures: a schedule that is off by a few minutes produces food that looks and tastes normal, as the Pressure and time requirements article says. A village standard with a made-up number is the same hazard in a different place.
What The Village Cannot Verify
Some claims the community can test directly: a chair can be loaded with weights, a filter can be run with muddy water, a joint can be pulled apart. Others it cannot: the burst strength of a pressure vessel cannot be tested without destroying it, and a weld flaw cannot be seen without radiography. For these, the standard should not invent a figure. It should say which of three bases applies:
- A recognised code, applied by someone competent in it.
- A certified existing article, such as a salvaged vessel with its nameplate and records (Vessel Construction).
- Not certifiable here, in which case the item is not used for the hazardous purpose.
The last option must be available to the board. A board that feels obliged to approve everything will approve something it cannot judge.
Worked Example: Two Standards
| Item | Requirement | Test | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chair | Supports 120 kg without failure | Load with known weights, watch for movement and cracking | Carrier article; board to review |
| Autoclave vessel | Accepted for steam service only if it has a code-derived design or a certified nameplate, a recorded hydrostatic proof test with water, a sealed relief valve and a working interlock | Inspect the records; repeat the proof test after any repair | A recognised pressure-vessel code, not village judgement |
The chair standard has a number because the community can load a chair and see. The autoclave standard has no pressure figure of its own, because the right figures live in the code and on the nameplate (Pressure Vessel Theory).
What You Need
- A board with written powers (System Governance).
- A standards register listing every standard, its owner and its review date.
- Test equipment the board can trust: known weights, a calibrated gauge, a straightedge.
- An incident log feeding revisions (Record Keeping).
- A rule that a standard is not changed after a test to fit the result.
Method: Running The Loop
Step 1: Draft the standard with all six parts.
Step 2: Try it on three real examples that a good practitioner considers good, fair and poor. It should sort them.
Step 3: Adopt it and put it in the register.
Step 4: Test work against it, recording results.
Step 5: Investigate failures as learning, keeping the failed part.
Step 6: Revise on evidence, noting what changed and why.
Step 7: Watch the pattern. The Competency Testing article suggests that if several graduates of one trainer fail at the same thing, the trainer’s method needs correcting. The same applies to a standard that most good practitioners fail.
Common Mistakes
- A number with no basis.
- A standard nobody can test.
- Changing the standard to pass a favourite.
- Treating an investigation as a trial. Practitioners will hide failures.
- Letting the trade set its own standards with no outsider.
- No review date.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Adapting to Community Needs — when the standards and the trades themselves must change
- Combine with: Assessment Methods — the people who apply the standards