Planned Standards

the calculated amounts of production time and material and monetary resources that are used in setting rates, planning and administration of production and other economic associations, enterprises, and organizations.

Standards are measured in both material and value terms and are expressed in either absolute or relative amounts. In the USSR, planned standards are used to calculate rates for such outlays as production time, materials, fuel, power, and services per unit of output or work performed. They are also employed as planned indexes, or ceilings, as in the ratio of the growth rates of average wages and labor productivity, in the percentage allocation for depreciation, and in return on fixed capital. The indexes that regulate and categorize the financial operations of the enterprise, such as standards for working capital, payments into economic incentive funds, and payment on productive capital, are also calculated on the basis of planned standards. So too are the indexes used to establish and maintain the essential level of organization in production, construction, planning, and equipment operation; these include, for example, timetables for startup and completion of production batches, quantities of reserve stocks, standard schedules for flow lines, and standards for the shift coefficient of equipment, for construction time, for full incorporation of production capacities, and for technological planning.

In use, planned standards are divided into intersectorial, or national, economic standards, which are used in different sectors of the national economy; sectorial, or departmental, standards, which are used within a given sector, or by industrial associations; and plant standards, which apply to a given enterprise or production association. Sectorial standards are as a rule differentiated by enterprise or production association, in order to allow for actual conditions. In terms of duration, planned standards are divided into long-term standards, which are used in long-range planning, and current standards. A distinction is made between model standards and reference standards on the basis of the degree to which use is mandatory.

The scientific and technological, as well as the economic, validity of plans depends in large part on how progressive their standards are. Planned standards should reflect the latest achievements in science and technology, up-to-date methods and forms of management, and advanced know-how. Analysis of the operations of socialist enterprises, which ensures identification of internal reserves and indicates ways to use them, is based on a comparison between actual indexes and planned standards. Constant effort to keep standards progressive and maintain them at the level of the latest scientific and technological advances is therefore required. This is achieved through systematic revisions, through refining the methods of determining the national economy’s needs for the means of production, and through developing technically sound rates for the consumption of raw and processed materials, fuel, and electrical energy, along with standards for the use of equipment, machinery, and systems. Scientifically substantiated standards are of great importance for achieving balanced use of material, labor, and financial resources and for effectively controlling the operation of enterprises and production associations.