Doug Fisher – Society of Allied Weight Engineers
Author: Doug Fisher
Public Draft – SAWE TO-2 “Procedure for Developing and Maintaining Documents”
A proposal to revise SAWE Recommended Practice TO-2 “Procedure for Developing and Maintaining Documents” is now available for comment at the Standards and Practices Public Review site here: https://www.sawe.org/standards/public-review/
The draft review period ends on 18 April 2021.
Author Doug FisherPosted on March 18, 2021 March 18, 2021 Categories Standards & Practices, UncategorizedTags Standards and PracticesLeave a comment on Public Draft – SAWE TO-2 “Procedure for Developing and Maintaining Documents”	
SAWE’s first ANSI standard has been published!
ANSI/SAWE STD M-4-2020 “Supplier Weight Control for the Marine Industry” was approved by ANSI on January 9 and will be published on January 17, 2020. It supersedes Recommended Practice M-4 (2012) “Vendor Weight Control for the Marine Industry”.
Congratulations go to Greg Roach, Terri Husley-Crawford, Andy Schuster and the Marine Industry Committee for their hard work and dedication to this task. All members of SAWE should be proud of this achievement.
With this publication the SAWE has shown it has the capability to create Voluntary Consensus Standards aligned with the USSS, (United States Standards Strategy) which in turn supports creation of ISO, International standards. Publishing our Recommended Practices as ANSI/SAWE Standards brings increased visibility to those documents and recognition to the SAWE as a standard developer.
The SAWE has been a member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) since 2012 and an accredited Standards Developing Organization (SDO) since 2014. The SAWE participates in International Standards Organization (ISO) sanctioned standards development work as an SDO for the United States’ sole member to ISO, which is ANSI.
The benefits of ANSI membership were described in a previous blog post by Jeff Cerro here (https://www.sawe.org/blog/2018/08/20/the-benefits-of-ansi-membership-to-the-sawe-society-corporate-and-individual-members/).
Author Doug FisherPosted on January 16, 2020 January 16, 2020 Categories Standards & Practices, UncategorizedTags ANSI, M-4, Marine, Standards and Practices1 Comment on SAWE’s first ANSI standard has been published!	
Standards and Practices – A Call to Action
At the kickoff of Standards and Practices Day at the 2019 International conference in Virginia, I talked about donuts.
An internationally known chain of donut shops noticed their sales dropping. To find out why, they asked their customers if there was a problem with the donuts. The answer was no – the donuts were as good as ever. But sales kept dropping. Then the donut shop asked a different question: what do the customers think of their donut shop experience? The response surprised them: the donuts were great, but the coffee was bad. That’s something the owners had not considered: get better coffee, sell more donuts. And it was only learned because the donut shop asked an open-ended question, allowing the customers to communicate what was important to them.
SAWE Recommended Practices (RPs) are a vital resource available to a wide range of customers. Mass Properties Engineers refer to them. Companies and government agencies require their use. But there are significant gaps in what our RPs cover. As the new Vice President of Standards and Practices, my role is to shepherd the development of new RPs and the revision of existing ones to ensure they stay relevant to our customers.
At the International conference I asked all of the Industry Committees to emulate the donut shop and ask their customers what is important to them. Understanding their customer priorities will allow the Industry Committees to know which RPs to focus on and will motivate them to complete their tasks on time.
By the end of 2019, each Industry Committee should document their customers’ needs, the Committee’s priorities, and the time-based plans to create Recommended Practices which support their customers’ needs.
This does not mean that all current work should stop. A small number of RPs, such as those being converted to ANSI standards, have been identified by the SAWE executive as high priorities and should continue to be worked. I have asked the Industry Committees to review and update the development schedule for each of these to ensure they will be published on time to meet the customer needs.
Developing and updating Recommended Practices is a vital part of ensuring the SAWE remains a professional society relevant to our industry needs. The Industry Committees need volunteers to help with this important work. If you wish to help out, please contact me at standards@sawe.org.
Author Doug FisherPosted on June 11, 2019 June 11, 2019 Categories SAWE International Conference, Standards & PracticesLeave a comment on Standards and Practices – A Call to Action	