Four Ways of Seeing Quality Infrastructure

The way we visualise quality infrastructure, whether as a temple, flowchart, ellipse, or rainbow, shapes not only our understanding of the topic but also how we comprehend our own role and influence the system.

Quality infrastructure is hard to draw. It is a technical system, a governance arrangement, a market enabler and a development instrument, often all at once. Depending on which of those things you need to explain on a given day, a different diagram will serve you better. Using the wrong one can quickly lose your audience's interest and is a reliable way to lose the room.

This post looks at four widely used QI diagrams: the Temple, the PTB flow chart (and the World Bank's variant), the UNIDO Ellipses, and the Mesopartner Rainbow. For each, we traced its origins, spoke with creators, and compared its intended audience and the messages it aims to communicate.

The Temple: MSTQ as Architecture

Infrastructure of the MSTQ System — author unknown

The diagram shows five pillars rising from three foundations. All five pillars rise from a triple foundation, supporting a roof labeled Quality. The pillars are Metrology, Standardisation, Testing, Certification, and Accreditation. The foundations are Education and Training, Adequate Legislation, and the Economic System. Using Greek or Roman architecture as a policy model has a long history in Europe and aligns well with the QI framework. Whoever chose this metaphor for QI made a good choice.

Similar ideas can be found in quality management. Although the original author is unknown, this concept appeared in the late 1990s, when QI was first being defined. The term ‘quality architecture’ was discussed at the time, but it never became widely used.

The diagram is easy to understand. Show it to a minister or to someone new to the appeal; it is straightforward and requires no explanation. If you show the diagram to a layman who has never encountered QI, they quickly see there are five parts. Each part rests on foundations. Everything supports Quality. You can use the diagram as a starting point almost anywhere. People immediately understand that there are five components, each resting on foundations, and that the whole structure exists to support something called Quality. Walk into almost any room, in any country, and use it as an entry point.

WHAT IT DOES WELL

The Temple gets its idea across in about 30 seconds. Its architectural metaphor works across cultures and doesn’t require any technical knowledge. The foundation layers do something most other QI diagrams miss:

They show that quality infrastructure depends on factors such as law, education, and an economy that values quality. A diagram that can share all of this without needing a caption deserves to last.

 The blind spots are equally clear. The five pillars are presented as equal and parallel, which is not true. In practice, metrology underpins everything; accreditation underpins certification and testing; the relationships between the components are central to understanding how the system works. These relationships are important, but the diagram does not show them. It mentions that the components are central to understanding how the system works. The diagram shows none of that. It refers to the Economic System but does not explicitly explain how businesses or consumers benefit. The international aspect is missing, and the 'Quality' roof label makes it seem like quality is just a result, not an ongoing process or a culture rooted in the pillars. The international dimension is absent. The roof is labeled Quality as though quality were an output rather than a culture.

BEST SUITED FOR

Use this in opening sessions, political briefings, or funding proposals—any situation where you need to show that QI is a system rather than a single institution, especially if your audience is new to the idea.

The Flow Chart: How the System Actually Works

National Quality Infrastructure own graph inspired by PTB and Sanetra (2007/ 2019)

The German Metrology Institute (PTB) uses a flowchart to demonstrate QI. Instead of listing the parts, it focuses on how they connect. Arrows show how metrology calibration guarantees precise measurements by testing laboratories, standardisation informs testing and certification, and accreditation bodies check and validate conformity assessment against international standards, which helps businesses and consumers can trust test reports, certificates and labels. On the left: value-chain sectors (agriculture, manufacturing, services) as actual users of the system. On the other side, right: the international bodies (BIPM, ILAC, IAF, ISO, etc.) that set the international framework of traceability and mutual recognition.

This diagram was inspired by Clemens Sanetra's 2007 book on quality infrastructure. He was one of the first to map each QI component and their connections separately, then combined them into a full overview. PTB refined the diagram, and it became widely used as a result.

The design aims to show technically independent, impartial components, a system in which the private sector and regulators were both clients, not one in which regulators were running the show. However, regulators adopted the framework, and donors followed suit. As a result, QI often became linked mainly to regulatory compliance, while its roles in productivity, efficiency, value creation, and innovation were overlooked. Sanetra later tried to separate Regulatory Infrastructure (RI) from Quality Infrastructure (QI), but he admits this made things harder to explain.

The diagram is easy to understand, and the arrows clearly indicate the direction. Still, in real situations, people create many interactions between the parts that the diagram does not show.

National Quality Infrastructure - The World Bank (hierarchical variant), Guasch (2007)

The World Bank diagram shows similar information but in a different way. It is strictly top-down: national metrology institute and standards body at the apex, accreditation flowing downward to certification bodies, inspection bodies, testing laboratories, and calibration laboratories, their outputs descending to enterprises, and from enterprises an arrow labelled Benefits pointing toward consumers and the general public, with a short list of what those benefits actually are: enhanced product quality, enhanced safety and health, decreased environmental impact.

That word, Benefits makes an argument: this system exists to deliver things people care about. The PTB flow chart explains the machinery. The PTB flow chart explains how the system works; the World Bank diagram explains why it matters. These are different discussions: the World Bank diagram justifies why the machinery should exist, and those are genuinely different conversations, often with different audiences in the room.

WHAT EACH VERSION DOES WELL

The PTB flow chart is the only diagram here that shows how the QI components work together in practice. It is also the only one that places the national system within the international mutual recognition framework. This level of detail is important when designing a program, identifying gaps, or training QI practitioners.

The World Bank version is not as helpful for explaining how the system works inside, but it is better for showing why the system is needed. This is especially useful for finance ministries and donors who want to understand what their funding supports.

BEST SUITED FOR

The PTB flow chart involves QI practitioners, technical advisors, institutional diagnostics, and programme design.

The World Bank version includes donor proposals, ministry briefings, and any discussion aimed at linking the system to real results for ordinary people.

The Nested Ellipses: A System Built from the Inside Out

FROM POLICY TO CONSUMER – UNIDO SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO QI, UNIDO, 2024 revision.

A team at UNIDO created the diagram around 2013. It was later updated for UNIDO's 2024 publication on climate and standards, changing the outer ring from "consumers" to "citizens."

The structure consists of nested ellipses. At the centre are the regulatory framework and quality policy, labelled Governance. Then follow the QI institutions (metrology, standardisation, accreditation); then QI services (conformity assessment, calibration, quality promotion). Then, enterprises and finally citizens at the outer edge. The intention is not to suggest that the system radiates outward from policy as its source, but to capture the complexity of the QI system as a whole: its elements, stakeholders, and their interconnections. Policy sits at the centre of the image; however, it is not the foundation from which everything grows. It is an important component within a much broader, interdependent system.

UNIDO explained that the goal was to highlight the demand for quality services. Previous frameworks focused on the supply side, showing institutions and their roles. This new diagram includes consumers and SMEs, as well as governance. UNIDO said it was the first QI framework to bring all these elements together.

Quality promotion is a key part of the services layer, and this is intentional. It connects supply and demand. Without efforts to raise awareness and build capacity among businesses and citizens, even the best conformity assessment institutions may go unused. The main idea is that supply should meet demand. If people do not ask for quality, small and medium-sized businesses have little reason to seek quality services, and investment in QI institutions will slow. This idea was important when the diagram was created and is still just as relevant today as it was in 2013.

In the 2024 version, the word ‘consumer’ was changed to ‘citizen’. While a consumer buys goods, a citizen benefits from things like clean air, accurate food labels, and safe medical devices, even without making a purchase. This change offers a broader view of quality, looking beyond individual needs and considering overall well-being and the planet’s health.

WHAT IT DOES WELL

According to UNIDO, their diagram was the first to show the entire QI system in a single image, including the supply and demand sides and governance. The use of nested ellipses shows how these parts depend on each other, without suggesting that any one is more important. The diagram is clear for both technical and non-technical audiences. Its main strength is showing that QI matters not just for trade and economic growth, but also for public health, environmental protection, and other social priorities. By linking QI to sustainable development, this diagram has shaped the global conversation about QI over the past ten years.

The diagram intentionally omits arrows between layers. With a system this complex, a single image can’t capture every interaction among all its parts. If we added arrows in just a few places, it might look like only those connections are important, which isn’t true. The diagram shows the actors and domains in the QI ecosystem. Mapping every possible interaction would be a different task.

The format creates a bit of visual tension because the outer rings seem less important. Citizens are shown at the very edge, but they are the system's main focus. It helps to mention this when you present the diagram: while it’s built from the centre outward, its real purpose starts with the people on the outside.

BEST SUITED FOR

National QI strategy work and stakeholder engagement with regulators and civil society help show QI’s value beyond just economic competitiveness. This includes its impact on public health, environmental protection, and sustainable development. The 2024 version’s focus on “citizens” makes it especially effective with policymakers in these areas.

The Rainbow: How QI Fits Into the Bigger Picture

Systemic Competitiveness with integrated QI — Mesopartner, Schoen (2020).

The Mesopartner Rainbow was never meant to be a QI diagram. Instead, it shows systemic competitiveness, a concept first developed by the German Development Institute (DIE) and later expanded by Mesopartner. The diagram treats competitiveness as a property of the entire socioeconomic system, not just individual firms. It uses four nested arcs: micro (firms and their strategies), meso (targeted institutional interventions), macro (stable framework conditions), and meta (the cultural and social foundations of how a society organises for development). QI is found in the meso arc, along with SME promotion, technology extension, and business networking.

QI-related elements also appear in the macro arc (rules, regulations, standards; trade and quality agreements) and at the meta level (quality awareness and commitment). That last appearance is the one worth pausing on. Placing quality culture at the meta level, the deepest, most structural layer, acknowledges something the other frameworks do not address: You can build institutions, fund laboratories, achieve international accreditation, and still end up with a QI system that produces very little if the surrounding culture has no particular interest in quality. Why some countries develop that interest and others do not is a question none of these diagrams can answer. But the Rainbow at least raises it, which is more than the others do.

WHAT IT DOES WELL

The Rainbow helps avoid a common mistake: treating QI as a goal in itself. By showing QI in the meso arc with other tools, the diagram highlights that QI is meant to support competitiveness, growth, sustainability, and development, rather than just accreditation.

Its multi-level structure also reflects reality: effective QI work happens at the firm level, through institutional design, policy conditions, and cultural change, all at the same time. None of the other diagrams in this set shows all these aspects together.

The main issue here is legibility. This diagram is not meant for someone unfamiliar with QI. In the meso arc, QI appears alongside many other elements. While this is accurate, it might make QI seem less important to people who are not already convinced of its value. The diagram is helpful for those who already know about QI, but it does not help newcomers understand it.

The diagram does not clearly show how the different levels connect, but the arcs do interact. A separate diagram with a timeline could help show this. Improving a QI system requires action at every level, sometimes directly and sometimes in less obvious ways.

BEST SUITED FOR

This framework helps private sector development advisors, teams focused on economic competitiveness, and anyone who needs to explain QI within a broader development strategy. It is also valuable for those working with ministries of economy or trade, or with development finance institutions that look at systemic impact.

Which One Should You Use?

The diagrams are not meant to compete with one another. Each one answers different questions and shows something unique.

If your audience is new to QI, begin with the Temple diagram. It helps you explain the concept quickly. After that, you can introduce the other diagrams as needed.

Use the PTB Flowchart when working with practitioners, such as when designing a program, identifying gaps, or training QI staff. It is also relevant for quality-related value chain assessments, like PTB is doing using the Calidena methodology.

It is the only diagram that shows how services relate within the system and connects them to international accreditation. But remember Sanetra’s advice: make sure you clearly explain the difference between regulated and market-driven requirements, or the diagram might be misunderstood.

Take the World Bank diagram when explaining public goods, especially if you are talking to a finance ministry or a donor who wants to see what the system delivers. The Benefits arrow, which points to consumers and the society, does something that other diagrams do not.

The UNIDO Ellipse is the best choice if your audience is focused on governance, regulation, or sustainable development. This is the only diagram that puts quality policy at the centre instead of the edge. The 2024 update, which changes ‘consumers’ to ‘citizens,’ matters for people working in public health, the environment, and social policy. The diagram is useful for more than just donor communication; it has helped shape global QI discussions by showing that QI is about public health, environmental protection, and social welfare, not just trade.

The Mesopartner Rainbow is designed for people who already know about QI and want to see how it fits into a bigger development picture. If you work with a Ministry of Economy or a competitiveness program and are comparing QI investments with other priorities, this diagram helps you see the system in the right context. Depending on your discussion, it might be just what you need, or you might decide to start with a different diagram.

A practitioner who can switch among all four diagrams depending on who is present is more useful than one who has settled on a favourite. All diagrams help to understand specific aspects of QI. At the same time, they can be used as templates for mapping specific national quality assurance systems. However, they are always merely starting points and must be adapted to the specific circumstances.

Note: We thank Clemens Sanetra, Dorina Nati, Nigel Croft, and Christian Schoen for their explanations of the various frameworks.

References

Schoen, C. (2020) Quality Infrastructure in the light of Systemic Competitiveness, QI4D Blog, April 30

UNIDO (2016) Quality Infrastructure – Building Trust for Trade, Vienna

UNIDO (2024) Tackling Climate Change - Fostering trust in climate action through quality and standards, Vienna

Sanetra, C./ Marbán, R.M. (2007/ 2019) The Answer to the Global Quality Challenge: A National Quality Infrastructure, PTB, Braunschweig

Kellermann, M. (2019): Ensuring Quality to Gain Access to Global Markets. A Reform Toolkit. By International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank and Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). ISBN: 978-1-4648-1372-6

Guasch, J.L./ Racine, J.-L./ Sánchez, I./ Diop, M. (2007) Quality Systems and Standards for a Competitive Edge, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, Washington DC