Ordnung muss sein — there must be order. The most quoted German phrase on the subject, and it is a statement of necessity rather than preference.
Alles hat seine Ordnung — everything has its order.
Das hat Hand und Fuß — that has hand and foot, said of something properly constructed.
Wie es sich gehört — as is fitting, as it belongs. Said of a thing done the correct way.
German public administration has its own universities, its own career tracks and its own body of administrative law governing how decisions must be reached. Procedure is the subject matter, not the overhead.
The German Verfahren covers a procedure, a legal proceeding, a manufacturing method and an administrative process. One noun for the ordered way of getting from a beginning to an end, used across law, industry and government alike.
The Verfahrensanweisung. A controlled document with a number, an author, an approval and a revision history, describing how a defined activity is carried out. It is part of the system, and changing it means going through the system.
German firms across manufacturing and services hold ISO 9001 certification, audited externally at intervals, covering documented processes for every activity that affects quality. Certification is frequently a condition of being a supplier at all.
German organisations appoint a Prozessverantwortlicher for each process, named in the quality system, responsible for its definition, review and improvement. The process has a person attached to it in the same way a product line does.
Aus Prinzip — on principle. Said in German as a complete justification for a position.
Grundsätzlich — fundamentally, as a matter of principle. It opens a great many German sentences, and signals that what follows is derived rather than improvised.
Das ist so vorgesehen — that is how it is provided for. Not how it is done. How it was laid down in advance.
A German Tarifvertrag sets pay grades, hours, holiday and conditions for an entire industry, and firms apply it rather than negotiate individually. The framework is written above the firm and the firm works within it.
The Musterbauordnung is drafted nationally and then adopted, with variations, by each state. The template is written first and the local rule derives from it.
German construction runs on the VOB — a standard set of contract terms, technical conditions and award rules, maintained by a permanent committee of public clients, contractors and professional bodies. Most German building work is performed under the same document.