The Networking Process for Review and Revision Is Documented by a
1.1. What are standards and how do they help?
- Have yous ever stopped to wonder why y'all can use your banking company card almost anywhere in the world?
- Or been thankful that the dashboard symbols in the Japanese auto you have hired in Australia are the same equally in your own French automobile at dwelling house in Kingdom of norway?
- Or noticed that you lot tin watch video footage (MPEG) delivered via the Web on whatever of the different computers you lot have access to?
- Or noticed that your baby'southward toy has no sharp edges?
- Or been confident that the imported packaged food you consume is fresh and safe?
These and many other examples of convenience for consumers in everyday life testify why standards, particularly International Standards, are directly relevant to yous.
Come up visit us on www.iso.org and navigate to ISO Standards in Action, to find out more about International Standards and how they make a deviation in the real world.
What are standards in this context?
A standard is a document, established by a consensus of discipline affair experts and approved past a recognized body that provides guidance on the blueprint, use or performance of materials, products, processes, services, systems or persons.
Some details of the common elements of an International Standard and its development tin be found in My ISO job. Many national standards follow the same format.
Standards can be developed by national, regional and international standards developing organizations and also by businesses or other organizations for their own internal use. They can besides be developed by consortia of businesses to accost a specific marketplace need, or by government departments to support regulations. This module is most concerned with standards produced by the international standards organizations, ISO and IEC, and their national members.
The formal definition from the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) and its sister organization, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is: a certificate, established past consensus and canonical past a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.
Whereas IEC'due south scope of work is specifically electrical and electrotechnical standardization, ISO's work plan encompasses virtually all other areas except telecommunications which is covered by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Still, a joint technical committee of ISO and IEC (JTC1)1 deals with information technology standardization.
one NOTE:
There are other organizations whose standardization activeness is international in nature. These organizations ofttimes work in liaison with ISO Technical Committees (TCs) developing standards in their areas of expertise. For example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is involved in many areas of ISO's work.
Standards are voluntary agreements, adult within an open process that gives all stakeholders, including consumers, the opportunity to express their views and have those views considered. This contributes to their fairness and market relevance, and promotes confidence in their use.
ISO has formalized these concepts within its Code of Ethics and its Strategic Programme, which both underline the importance of consumer participation in standards development.
ISO and IEC too produce other standards-related documents. For more information, run into "Joining in: participating in international standardization", "Involving consumers – Why and how", and "Guidance for National Standards Bodies on engaging stakeholders" in the Resources Section of this module.
Become to Resource section.
An important procedure commonly associated with the implementation or use of standards is conformity cess. This is the process of evaluating or measuring whether materials, products, processes, services, systems or persons encounter requirements (such every bit those contained in a standard). ISO and IEC too develop procedures and standards for conformity cess.
What do standards comprise?
The International Standards published by ISO or by IEC are international consensus documents developed past representatives of the ISO or IEC member bodies coming together in international Technical Committees. International Standards incorporate technical specifications or other precise criteria, which ensure that materials, products, processes, services, systems, or persons are fit for their intended purpose (for more well-nigh consensus, see 1.4).
Standards have no predefined lifetime but undergo periodic review to ensure that they take account of the latest technological developments and market trends.
As noted to a higher place, standards do not necessarily only contain requirements (which are specifications, such every bit defining characteristics, tolerances and limiting values) for products.
They can also be examination methods, codes of practice, management organisation standards, recommendations, or guidelines (guidance) on an agreed all-time do.
Management system standards depict how businesses internally manage their production and continuous improvement processes, either for quality assurance purposes, or to address specific concerns such as nutrient safety, environmental stewardship or security of data systems.
Standards are too developed for the growing services sector
Standards gear up criteria that affect health and safety or define labelling and packaging requirements for consumer products. They can bargain with graphical symbols, certification of persons, or conformity assessment practices. These standards are of particular interest for consumers.
NOTE: Standards are not to be confused with ISO/IEC Guides. Guides are publications for technical experts to provide advice on defining requirements and guidance for cantankerous-disciplinary subjects (such as packaging, product information, or graphical symbols), when writing standards.
How practice standards assistance?
Standards ensure consistency of essential features of goods and services, such as quality, ecology, condom, economy, reliability, compatibility, interoperability, efficiency and effectiveness.
Standards codify the latest technology and facilitate its transfer. Standards are therefore an invaluable source of knowledge.
Thus, standards avoid reinventing the wheel: they distil expert noesis and make information technology bachelor to all.
International Standards, in particular:
- Help make the development, manufacturing and supply of goods and services more efficient, safer and cleaner.
An case: ISO 22000, Food safety management systems – Requirements for any organization in the food chain helps an organization or company that ships, packages or sells food and foodstuffs to have an effective system to help ensure the rubber of these products. - Make trade between countries easier and fairer considering the same specifications are adopted for utilize in different countries as national or regional standards.
- In many countries national standards are aligned with International ones, for example more sixty% of Malaysian Standards are aligned in this way.
- ISO 22000, Food prophylactic direction systems – Requirements for whatever organization in the nutrient chain has been adopted as a national standard in 37 countries, including in Poland (PN-EN IS0 22000:2006) and in Thailand (TIS 22000-2548:2005).
- 45 countries have adopted ISO 10002, Quality management – Customer satisfaction – Guidelines for complaints treatment in organizations.
A specific example is ISO 14971, Application of risk cess for medical devices, which was adopted as ANSI/AAMI/ISO 14971 in the Usa; as EN ISO 14971 in Europe; and every bit JIST 14971 in Nippon. - Are an effective and commonly used back up to national technical regulations.
- Malaysia's Electric Regulations scheme includes mandatory compliance with 31 categories of household appliances standards.
- Compliance with toy prophylactic standards is mandatory for example in Albania and Malaysia.
- Safeguard users and consumers and make many aspects of their lives simpler.
Examples of but a few of these areas are prophylactic of toys, safety signs and, within IEC, safety and performance of household electric appliances.
- Are coherent inside a global system, either within a framework of mutually compatible standards, or every bit recognized formally past other standardizing bodies.
(Besides see 2.2)
1.2. National, regional and international standards and how they relate to regulatory regimes
National, regional and international standards
The showtime thing to remember is that standards usually kickoff at the country level. Most countries have their own national standards-making bodies, and nearly of these are members of ISO and volition take all of the following roles:
- they publish, and may write, their ain national standards
- they stand for their country in regional and international standard-setting fora
- they hold a reference library of national, regional and international standards
- they sell copies of standards
- Some also offer conformity assessment services such every bit accreditation, certification or other commercial activities
National standards bodies may also grouping together to make regional standards. For case, national standards bodies in Europe are likewise members of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) as well every bit members of ISO. Together with its sister organizations, CENELEC and ETSI, CEN has a special role to develop European Standards that can support European Spousal relationship laws (known every bit 'directives') or broader European public policies. Other regional standards groups exist as well, such equally in Latin America (COPANT), or the Asia-Pacific region (PASC).
The utilise of standards may be voluntary, or they may exist referenced in regulation (therefore mandatory). The "New Arroyo" in Europe is an example of this (see world wide web.newapproach.org).
Standards are used in Europe to support pan-European legislation under this 'New Arroyo'. Standards are mandatory when referenced in specific EU Directives, but otherwise the decision on their use remains voluntary.
Under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, governments are required to base their national regulations on standards produced by organizations similar ISO and IEC, as much as possible (likewise come across i.iii).
Partly because of these rules, and also because of the general globalization of trade, national and regional standards bodies are either adopting or otherwise using International Standards, where possible.
How standards relate to regulatory regimes
The important stardom betwixt standards and legislation is that standards are voluntary, whereas legislation is mandatory. When regulatory authorities utilise standards as a basis for legislation, only then do they become mandatory, and so only within the jurisdiction covered by the legislation.
Regulatory authorities decide themselves whether to use Standards to back up their technical regulations. Once this happens, at that place are various means of referring to the legal text:
- Directly references to specific editions of a given standard (dated straight reference)
Example: The hazardous waste matter material container shall accommodate to ISO Thirty:2012 Title
- Straight references to a standard, without specifying the edition (undated direct reference)
Example: The hazardous waste material comprise shall adapt to the latest edition of ISO xxx:2003 Championship
- Indirect references to the use of the standard, such as use of official standards register which is kept up to date and fabricated publicly available
Example: Where the product meets the relevant ISO or IEC standard whose reference number has been published in (OFFICIAL LISTING), the relevant authorities shall presume compliance with the requirements of this law.
For more details and examples, see the information publication Using and referencing ISO and IEC standards for technical regulations in Section 8.
1.3. The ISO organization and its partners
What is ISO?
ISO is a network of the national standards bodies (NSBs) of some 164 countries (in 2012), with one member per country. Among other activities, ISO's Fundamental Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, coordinates the organisation and development of International Standards.
ISO is a non-governmental arrangement: its members are not, as is the case in the Un system, delegations of national governments. Withal, ISO occupies a special position between the public and private sectors. This is because many of its members are part of the governmental structure of their countries, or are mandated by their government. Other members have their roots uniquely in the private sector, having been ready up by national partnerships of industry associations, working cooperatively with the public sector.
Therefore, ISO is able to act as a bridging organization. It tin can develop solutions that meet both the requirements of business concern and the broader needs of society, including stakeholder groups similar consumers and other users.
Who are ISO'due south partners?
ISO cooperates with the IEC and ITU and they have joined to form the World Standards Cooperation (WSC) as the focus of their combined strategic action.
These three organizations each have a strategic partnership with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) aiming to promote a gratis and off-white global trading system. ISO cooperates in the framework of several WTO Agreements, notably the WTO Understanding on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO-TBT). Signatories to the TBT commit themselves to promoting and using international standards such every bit the type produced by ISO.
ISO cooperates closely with most of the specialized agencies and bodies of the Un that are involved in technical harmonization and assistance to developing countries.
ISO also maintains close working relations with regional standards organizations, many of whose members also belong to ISO.
In addition, across the board some six hundred specialized organizations representing trade or regulatory sectors and other stakeholder groups, including consumers, participate in developing ISO standards.
Only relevant stakeholders are involved in the development of any one standard.
In order to allow systematic classification and study of stakeholders, the ISO Technical Lath has divers seven distinct categories for classification of experts participating in technical committees (TMB Resolution 75/2012). They appear in the tabular array below.
| Category | Title | Typically including: |
| A | Industry and commerce | manufacturers; producers; designers; service industries; distribution, warehousing and transport undertakings; retailers; insurers; banks and financial institutions; concern and trade associations |
| B | Government | international and regional treaty organizations and agencies; national regime and local government departments and agencies, and all bodies that have a legally recognized regulatory function |
| C | Consumers | national, regional and international consumer representation bodies, contained of any organization that would fall into the 'manufacture and commerce' category, or individual experts engaged from a consumer perspective |
| D | Labour | international, regional, national and local trades unions and federations of trades unions and similar bodies the main purpose of which is to promote or safeguard the commonage interests of employees in respect of their relationship with their employers This does not include professional associations 1) |
| E | Academic and research bodies | universities and other higher educational bodies or professional educators associated with them; professional associations 1); inquiry institutions |
| F | Standards application | testing, certification and accreditation bodies; organizations primarily devoted to promoting or assessing the employ of standards 2) |
| 1000 | Non-governmental organization (NGO) | organizations that normally operate on a charitable, non-for-profit or non-turn a profit distributing basis and that take a public interest objective related to social or ecology concerns. |
| Notes 1) Professional associations are regarded every bit:
2) 'Accreditation' refers to the accreditation of testing and certification bodies. | ||
Likewise see ISO's Web site, ISO Online, for more details most ISO and its partners.
1.4. How standards are developed
1.iv.1 National standard
Typically a national standards body (NSB), or one of its member organizations will first decide the market place need for a standard.
For instance, this demand might be a request from the regime to use a standard as a technical regulation to support consumer protection, or it might exist a request from an manufacture grouping to address interoperability problems or from a consumer grouping to depict the risks associated with adventurous activities.
The standardization trunk can then do one of 3 things:
- At the national level, an NSB can develop a new national standard, using a national technical committee that represents interested stakeholders (including, for example, consumer interests).
-
Notation: dissimilar NSBs have dissimilar processes for involving stakeholders
-
- An NSB tin adopt a national standard from another NSB, with the latter's prior agreement and payment of copyright fees and other commercial arrangements
- An NSB can adopt an already existing international standard as a national standard.
one.four.two International Standard
One essential feature of international standards is that the process is formally laid down in the ISO/IEC Directives (the rules that govern the standards development procedure). All international standards evolution work must follow this process, which has been established to ensure transparency and fairness. These are two important principles that underpin the credibility of ISO and IEC.
In ISO (and IEC), a proposal for an International Standard is most usually submitted by an NSB:
- to the ISO Primal Secretariat for farther development, if it is an ISO member
- to the IEC Key Office if it is a member of IEC
- In some cases, an NSB tin offer a national or regional standard to form the basis of an International Standard ("fast track procedure") or as a sample text appended to a New Work Item Proposal (NWIP).
It can too come up from a number of other sources, such as an ISO policy or governing body (east.g. COPOLCO), the ISO Secretarial assistant-Full general, a Technical Committee or an organization in liaison (due east.m. OECD or CI).
An ISO International Standard represents a global consensus on the state of the fine art in the subject of that standard. This global consensus is reached over the course of a six-phase development process for International Standards, which is described in detail beneath.
ISO'south standards evolution process is designed to reflect the WTO principles of transparency, openness, impartiality and consensus, effectiveness and relevance, coherence, and addressing developing state concerns, and so as to contribute to the brownie of the International Standards produced. For example, the procedure allows for input and consensus building, get-go among market players and experts at the drafting stages of the standards, and 2nd amid countries at the formal voting stages of the standards. As a issue, all ISO International Standards finer reverberate a double level of consensus.
For more about the process click on this flowchart:
Review of International Standards (Confirmation, Revision, Withdrawal)
- All International Standards are reviewed at to the lowest degree in one case every 5 years by all the ISO member bodies. A majority of the P-members of the TC/SC decides whether an International Standard should be confirmed, revised or withdrawn based on a survey circulated to all ISO members about the adoption and use of the standard in question.
- For a more than detailed description of the standards development process and ISO's deliverables, see the ISO brochure 'Joining in', available free online at: http://www.iso.org/iso/joining_in_2012.pdf.
The average development fourth dimension for an International Standard is approximately three years. Increasingly, the work is done electronically to ameliorate speed to marketplace and to conserve resources.
ISO also produces other types of documents that involve fewer consultation stages such equally international Workshop Agreements (IWA), Technical Reports (TR) (therefore a lower degree of consensus), just are quicker to reach the marketplace.
ane.five. Reaching consensus
According to ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004 Standardization and related activities – Full general vocabulary , consensus is "General agreement, characterized by the absenteeism of sustained opposition to substantial problems by whatsoever of import part of the concerned interests and by a procedure that involves seeking to have into account the views of all parties concerned and to reconcile any conflicting arguments.
NOTE Consensus demand non imply unanimity.
The Foreword of the ISO/IEC Directives, Office 1, also affirms consensus-edifice as the basis for ISO's standardization process. Consensus is an essential procedural principle, requiring the resolution of substantial objections in meetings or by correspondence. It is "a necessary condition for the preparation of International Standards that volition be accepted and widely used".
The aim is to resolve noun bug before the final stages of development.
At the international level, information technology is generally the chore of the Technical Commission Chair, in consultation with the Secretary and the Project Leader for the standard, to decide whether consensus has been reached and the text is fix to exist circulated to the membership of ISO and/or IEC (enquiry stage).
i.6. ISO'south actions and partners working for consumers
The ISO Commission on consumer policy (COPOLCO)
ISO seeks to ensure that its standards are marketplace-relevant and encounter the needs of the end-user. This end-user is often a consumer who is exposed to an increasingly global offer of products and services. Equally standardization plays a significant role in assuring that products meet essential consumer requirements for wellness, condom, and quality for case, standards are a central tool in promoting consumer protection. See Section ii for more than virtually how standards benefit consumers.
Realizing that consumers were an of import stakeholder in standards development, ISO established a policy development committee in 1978, the Committee on consumer policy (COPOLCO). COPOLCO reports direct to the ISO Quango, the governing body of the arrangement.
COPOLCO has a membership of some 112 National Standards Bodies from amidst the ISO membership (as of January 2013), of which approximately three-quarters are from developing countries.
COPOLCO has the following general objectives:
- Making ISO/COPOLCO'due south services available to ISO members worldwide
- Supporting the development of consumer participation in standards-making
- Studying how consumers tin can benefit from standardization
- Promoting the positive role of standards in consumer protection
- Encouraging the exchange of feel on standards work of consumer interest
- Channelling consumers' views both into current standards projects and proposals for new work in areas of involvement to consumers
COPOLCO achieves these objectives by:
- Analogous participation by consumer representatives in selected areas of priority involvement to consumers
- Developing publications to promote consumer participation in standards work and to train consumer representatives for this job
- Coordinating training activities and representation at events involving consumers and standardization issues
- Organizing annual workshops that bring together representatives of consumers, public authorities, manufacturers and standardization experts
- Preparing a range of Guides for experts, to help them address consumer bug and priorities more fairly when they draft standards
- Preparing proposals for new standards projects
- Informing consumers and other interested persons through a freely available online newsletter and social media sites
In relation to standards evolution at the national level, COPOLCO membership encourages networking. This assists consumer representatives at the national level to benefit from the experiences of consumers in other countries.
For specific contributions that COPOLCO has made to ISO'due south work, see section 4.2
See the dedicated consumer area of ISO Online for more near COPOLCO.
COPOLCO'south partners
COPOLCO cooperates closely with several other ISO policy development committees, equally "internal" partners. The ISO Committee on developing country matters (ISO/DEVCO) concentrates, inter alia, on helping ISO's developing land members build chapters and therefore participate effectively in the ISO organization, as with other countries. COPOLCO and DEVCO piece of work closely together on training workshops to aid NSBs and consumer organizations work more effectively together in standards development.
Get to DEVCO website
COPOLCO besides cooperates with the ISO Committee on conformity cess (ISO/CASCO) on matters of common interest, including product call back, market surveillance, and utilise of marks of conformity assessment.
COPOLCO works with three external partners (liaisons):
- Organization of Economic Cooperation and Evolution (OECD)'s Committee on consumer policy (OECD/CCP). A number of standardization initiatives from COPOLCO have drawn on the research and studies by the OECD.
- Get to OECD (www.oecd.org) website
- Consumers International, the worldwide organization for consumer groups. Consumers International is a federation of consumer organizations dedicated to the protection and promotion of consumers' rights worldwide through empowering national consumer groups and campaigning at the international level. More than than 220 organizations, from 115 countries, participate in CI. Annotation: Many CI members nourish the COPOLCO plenary meeting each year every bit members of the national COPOLCO member delegations.
- Go to CI (www.consumersinternational.org) website
- International Organization for Legal Metrology (OIML) is an intergovernmental treaty organization which promotes the global harmonization of legal metrology procedures. Legal Metrology is the entirety of the legislative, administrative and technical procedures established by, or by reference to public authorities, and implemented on their behalf in society to specify and to ensure, in a regulatory or contractual style, the appropriate quality and brownie of measurements related to official controls, merchandise, wellness, prophylactic and the environment. OIML's work has relevance for consumers, inter alia, in the area of calibration for measuring equipment. This is critical for the accuracy of safety tests, and consumer tools such as utility meters. Information technology is also vital for consumer production testing laboratories.
- Go to OIML (www.oiml.org) website
These liaisons participate in COPOLCO's annual meetings and workshops, and also contribute to the development of COPOLCO'due south publications and inquiry.
The IEC as well participates in COPOLCO, every bit does ANEC, the European consumer vocalization in standardization.
COPOLCO also organizes grooming activities to foster consumer representation in standards development, in partnership with ISO/DEVT, the capacity-building arm of ISO's Committee on developing country matters (DEVCO). Through the generous support of the Swedish International Evolution Cooperation Agency, several ISO members and sponsoring organizations, 7 regional training events took identify in various locations around the earth. Post-obit these, in that location were two 'train the trainer' events (one in English, 1 in French), also equally a number of follow-upward workshops which are nonetheless continuing. There is now relevant grooming expertise available in more regions and countries, which can undertake preparation on consumers and standards. For more information, contact ISO/DEVT (devt@iso.org).
The presentations and proceedings of all of these workshops are publicly available in a dedicated area of ISO Online.
ISO likewise produces the following helpful materials that are available in the resource section of this module:
- Supporting stakeholders – Disseminating ISO Documents to National Mirror Committees (ISO), 2009
- The consumer and standards – Guidance and principles for consumer participation in standards development (ISO), 2003
- How ISO/IEC Guides add together value to International Standards (ISO), 2007
- My ISO task – Guidance for delegates and experts (ISO), 2008
- Guidance for national standards bodies – Engaging stakeholders and building consensus (ISO), 2010
- Involving consumers – Why and how (ISO), 2011
- Joining in – Participation in International Standardization (ISO), 2012
Review questions – Department i
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- 2. How standards benefit consumers
Source: https://www.iso.org/sites/ConsumersStandards/1_standards.html
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