Generic standards promote order and coherence within the body of standards. They enable an issue relevant to several areas of standardization to be governed at a higher level: in mathematical terms, to be placed outside the brackets. KAN Report 38 examined the relevance of generic standards, with machine safety serving as an example, and identified the benefits for the system of standardiza-tion. In addition, the report contains lists of identified cross-sectional standards.
In the light of increasingly scarce resources, it is important that both the devel-opment and updating of standards, and their application and administration, be managed in the most efficient and user-friendly way possible. Generic standards can contribute to this objective. Examples of generic standards are the type A and B standards in the area of machine safety or the cross-disciplinary ergonom-ics standards.
The benefits of generic standards lie primarily in the clarity and consistency of the body of standards and in the avoidance of duplicate provisions. Generic stan-dards enhance efficacy in the development of product standards, shorten their development time, and in particular increase the quality of the standards. During product development, they are particularly helpful when appropriate product-specific standards do not exist.