Making a New Screw
An article in Forbes, The Taming of the Screw, describes how Kenneth LeVey of Illinois Tool Works came up with a better screw that won't crack concrete and will grip tight in plastic.
On the Sigia-l discussion list, Ziya explains how this relates to standards:
For millennia the form factor of the screw hasn't changed substantially. A slave to standards looks at that, shrugs his shoulders and continues to use it without questioning the basic premises. Everybody else is using the same screws, right? Safety in numbers, best practices, etc.
An innovator looks at the same set of facts and realizes that "the standards" are suboptimal, as users are wasting a lot of money and effort to compensate for the inadequacies of the screw as we know it, in terms of compression, binding, assembly workflow, etc.
For decades the manufacturing process hasn't changed and to overcome the stated shortcomings of the "standard" screw an entirely new method has to be invented.
Somebody takes risks.
After the invention, a lot of the compensatory steps that used to be necessary for proper binding are no longer needed. The (new) form changes the function. Users are served better. Quality is improved. Savings ensue.
This doesn't happen because of blind adherence to standards/best practices, but because someone studies the problem in context and deals with specifics as opposed to common denominator generalities, however old and established they may happen to be. It happens because someone is not satisfied that so many others think the best that can be done is the standards/best practices of the moment. It happens because someone actually thinks through the process and questions all kinds of received wisdom. It happens because someone isn't satisfied with what's expedient, but goes after what's optimal for a given context.
