Concept of Standardisation
Senior 1 · Entrepreneurship
Concept of Standardisation
Lesson 1 of 5
25 min
Uwineza makes soya-and-maize porridge flour in Ruhango District and sells it in "1 kg" bags. Her customers have started to complain. One bag weighed 950 g, another 1,040 g. Some batches were smooth, others lumpy, and the labels were written by hand, each a little different. When she asked a Kigali supermarket to stock her flour, the buyer said: "Every bag must be the same, every time, and your flour must meet the standard for this kind of product." (An illustrative case.)
Think about it: why would a supermarket care whether every bag is the same?
Definition
Standard: a document, agreed by the people concerned and approved by a recognised body, that sets out rules, requirements or characteristics for a product, process or service, so that it is fit for its purpose and the same each time.
Example: a standard for maize flour that fixes its moisture, its cleanliness and what must be printed on the bag.
Definition
Standardisation: the process of making, publishing and applying standards, so that products, processes and services are the same, safe and fit for their purpose wherever and whenever they are made.
Example: Uwineza weighing every bag to 1 kg and using one recipe and one printed label.
Definition
Quality: how well a product or service meets the needs of the people who use it and the requirements set for it.
Example: flour that is clean, dry, correctly weighed and correctly labelled is of good quality.
Definition
Specification: a detailed list of the exact requirements a product must meet: its size, mass, ingredients, strength, and so on.
Example: "Net mass 1 kg; moisture not more than a stated percentage; no insects or stones."
| Everyday thing | What the standard fixes | Why it helps |
|---|---|---|
| A4 paper | Its exact size: 210 × 297 mm | Fits every printer, file and envelope made for A4 |
| A SIM card | Its size, shape and contacts | Works in phones of any brand |
| A shipping container | Its length, width, height and corner fittings | Moves from ship to train to lorry without unpacking |
| The kilogram and the metre | Units of measurement (the SI) | A kilogram of beans is the same in Musanze and in Mombasa |
| A bottle cap | Its diameter and thread | Any cap of that size seals any bottle of that size |
| A football pitch and ball | Sizes and mass | Teams from different countries can play one another |
The international standard for paper, ISO 216, gives every A-size sheet the same shape, so that cutting a sheet in half gives the next size down.
Worked example 1: the shape of A-size paper
Step 1: A4.
Step 2: A3.
Step 3: compare. Both ratios are very close to . That is why an A3 page can be shrunk onto A4, or two A4 pages printed on one A3 sheet, without anything being cut off or distorted. One agreed number makes paper, printers and photocopiers work together all over the world.
Tip
Same everywhere, every time. A standard makes a thing the same everywhere (so parts fit and people can trade) and the same every time (so customers can trust it).
Worked example
Worked example 2: do Uwineza's bags meet the rule? (illustrative)
Suppose the rule for her 1 kg bags is that no bag may be more than 15 g short. So each bag's mass must satisfy
| Bag | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mass (g) | 950 | 1,040 | 988 | 1,003 | 979 |
| At least 985 g? | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Bags 1 and 5 fail: customers are cheated. Bag 2 passes, but it gives away 40 g of flour, which costs Uwineza money on every overfilled bag. Standardising her weighing (a calibrated scale and a fixed method) fixes both problems.
Warning
"Standard" does not mean "expensive" or "luxury". A standard is an agreed set of requirements, often a minimum. A cheap bag of flour and an expensive one can both meet the standard; a product that does not meet it may be unsafe or unfair to the buyer, whatever its price.
Kigali Today, "TVET Hindiro: Ibiribwa batunganya bigiye guhabwa ubuziranenge bicuruzwe" (in Kinyarwanda, about 5 minutes, 2018). Students at a TVET school in Ngororero District process foods and explain why their products need a quality certificate before they can be sold.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the Ruhango flour case, the tables, the paper-size drawing, the worked examples and the practice items. The 15 g rule and all masses are illustrative (2026). This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
