And now think about all the normed parts you encounter everyday: screws, material, plugs, tools, fuel... All of those stabdards have been enforced at one time. Including adminiszartive commitees, staffed mostly by industry (!), to revise them and keep them updated.

Edit: One can make the case about the roman empire, and some really old civilization in India I am too lazy to look up, building quite impressive empires running on engineering and other stabdards across gigantic portions of thebthen known earth. That neother of those exists anymore is hardly the fault of those norms.

Oh, nor to forget: measurement units.