Page 102 - The ROV Manual - A User Guide for Remotely Operated Vehicles 2nd edition

90 CHAPTER 3 Design Theory and Standards
the new F41 standard (so as to reduce costs and widen availability through a larger installed user base), but the civilian world has largely passed this standard by in favor of other standards. Why? The reason this is such an interesting story is that in Chapter 23, we will examine some of the future trends in the subsea world. We may see this standard come full circle and either evolve or merge into more accepted civilian API or ISO standards as the subsea world further develops.
As with its natural counterpart, industrial standards start out with a need, then evolve, grow, change, die, are born again, then merge into other standards. A typical standards development pro- cess starts out with an industry group meeting with a common problem. The group collectively coop- erates to come forth with an agreed standard adapted by the group. The standard will only survive if it is widely accepted within the group. If it favors a particular segment over another, the blighted organization will simply refuse to adapt and the whole standard will die. If the standard is provision- ally accepted then it must evolve to meet the changing technology (or, again, it dies). An interesting example of this is the VHS versus Betamax videotape format war—VHS won in the short term but it eventually died in favor of DVD (which is rapidly being overtaken by Blu-Ray—which will probably be gobbled up by another standard later). There are various types of standards including:
1. Consensus standards—agreed within a group (e.g., “we will adapt the Roberts Rules of Order while voting”—interesting because it is adapting as standard someone else’s standard)
2. De facto standards—accepted via fact due to market dominance (can anyone say “Windows Operating System?”); also, the de facto standard for subsea fiber-optic multiplexers is Focal Technologies and if one wants a manipulator system, the default is Schilling (for large hydraulic vehicles) or Hydro-Lek (for mid-sized electric vehicles)
3. Geographical standards—accepted within a region (e.g., (in England) “we will drive on the left-hand side of the road”)
4. Open standards—publically available (e.g., metric/imperial)
5. Regulatory standards—governmental laws promulgated whereby industry is legally required to
comply
6. Standard of care—legal standards (while intending to be objective) generally leave a
considerable margin for subjective bias and interpretation.
In Chapter 13, some of the communications standards currently on the market will be examined
and in Chapter 19 API/ISO common mechanical interface standards will be covered.
An ROV involves many types of technologies, including materials, data communications, video, hardware, software, and a host of other standardized items. These standards are typically listed and referenced within their category or usage. A short, yet representative, list of common ROV stan- dards (by category) is provided in Table 3.6.
The last subject for discussion within standards is one that is definitely not germane only to the ROV industry. It is the eternal battle between the equipment manufacturer and the equipment operator.
The economic incentive of the manufacturer is to make equipment that is completely proprietary so that not only does the manufacturer make a profit once the product is sold, but continues to milk an ongoing revenue stream from that sale through replacement parts sales and services along with engineering services for any modifications needed to the system for the entire service life of the equipment. The incentive of the service provider is for a completely open architecture with freely available replacement parts at the lowest price/highest quality point resulting in many different ave- nues for sourcing replacement parts.