In order to improve the quality of production and construction, it is necessary to improve standardization.

A standard is a legal document which sets a rational criterion for producing the best socioeconomic effect on the basis of the comprehensive successes of scientific, technological and practical experience and is approved by the standardization organization.

The issue of improving the quality of products is directly linked with standardization.

The quality of every product is evaluated by the effectiveness of its use and lifespan and is generally determined by such factors as components, structure, form and physicochemical and mechanical properties.

Standardization promotes the improvement of product quality by encouraging people to define standards by reflecting these characteristics and requirements in detail, thoroughly enforce them and constantly update them.

It also plays an important role in reducing the costs of production and increasing labour productivity.

It is because standardization constitutes the basis for improving the quality control as the whole process of production takes place according to the standards.

And the establishment of standards is oriented to enhancing the product quality to the maximum on the basis of the comprehensive study and analysis of advanced science and technology, practical experience and consumer demands for quality.

In particular, standardization is an important way to improve the quality of products by introducing specialization of production.

It makes it possible to increase serial production and realize specialization of production by setting a standard, choosing varieties rationally on the basis of it and ensuring the compatibility and integrity of their parts.

The more specialized production gets, the higher the level of modernization of production processes and technical means and the level of technical skills of workers grow, the better the business management and environmental conditions for production get and, accordingly, the higher the quality of products and their productivity go up.

In our country, where the masses of the people are the genuine masters of production and construction and the economy is managed and operated in a planned way under the unified guidance of the state, all the conditions are provided for improving and intensifying the work of standardization.

Our institute effectively standardizes all objects and elements created in the course of production and construction and works hard to steadily update and unify the standards in conformity with the people's evaluation and the developing reality.

And it confirms the public evaluation and economic effectiveness of newly-defined standards at the production sites and corrects and supplements unreasonable elements.

It also proactively introduces advanced international standards by developing the standard information work while conducting the work to unify the newly updated standards.

As the role of standardization grows in improving the quality of products, we will further intensify our research into it.

Ri Myong Chol, deputy director of the National Standardization Institute