Standards

I'm reading Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno. In "The True Intention of the Ford System" chapter, he quotes Ford's book regarding standards.

One has to go rather slowly on fixing standards, for it is considerably easier to fix a wrong standard than a right one. There is the standardizing which marks inertia, and the standardizing which marks progress. Therein lies the danger in loosely talking about standardization.

And the rest of the passage talks about that standards effort should not be directed from above or it does not lead to progress.