Monday 10 September 2012

The ISO brand

ISO's origins

In 1946, delegates from 25 countries met in London and decided to create a new international organization, of which the object would be "to facilitate the international coordination and unification of industrial standards". The new organization, ISO, officially began operations on 23 February 1947, in Geneva, Switzerland.
·         Standards ensure desirable characteristics of products and services such as quality, environmental friendliness, safety, reliability, efficiency and interchangeability - and at an economical cost.
·         When products and services meet our expectations, we tend to take this for granted and be unaware of the role of standards. However, when standards are absent, we soon notice. We soon care when products turn out to be of poor quality, do not fit, are incompatible with equipment that we already have, are unreliable or dangerous.
·         When products, systems, machinery and devices work well and safely, it is often because they meet standards. And the organization responsible for many thousands of the standards which benefit the world is ISO.
ISO standards:
  • make the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner
  • facilitate trade between countries and make it fairer
  • provide governments with a technical base for health, safety and environmental legislation, and conformity assessment
  • share technological advances and good management practice
  • disseminate innovation
  • safeguard consumers, and users in general, of products and services
  • make life simpler by providing solutions to common problems
·         ISO standards provide technological, economic and societal benefits.
·         For businesses, the widespread adoption of International Standards means that suppliers can develop and offer products and services meeting specifications that have wide international acceptance in their sectors. Therefore, businesses using International Standards can compete on many more markets around the world.
·         For innovators of new technologies, International Standards on aspects like terminology, compatibility and safety speed up the dissemination of innovations and their development into manufacturable and marketable products.
·         For customers, the worldwide compatibility of technology which is achieved when products and services are based on International Standards gives them a broad choice of offers. They also benefit from the effects of competition among suppliers.
·         For governments, International Standards provide the technological and scientific bases underpinning health, safety and environmental legislation.
·         For trade officials, International Standards create "a level playing field" for all competitors on those markets. The existence of divergent national or regional standards can create technical barriers to trade. International Standards are the technical means by which political trade agreements can be put into practice.
·         For developing countries, International Standards that represent an international consensus on the state of the art are an important source of technological know-how. By defining the characteristics that products and services will be expected to meet on export markets, International Standards give developing countries a basis for making the right decisions when investing their scarce resources and thus avoid squandering them.
·         For consumers, conformity of products and services to International Standards provides assurance about their quality, safety and reliability.
·         For everyone, International Standards contribute to the quality of life in general by ensuring that the transport, machinery and tools we use are safe.
·         For the planet we inhabit, International Standards on air, water and soil quality, on emissions of gases and radiation and environmental aspects of products can contribute to efforts to preserve the environment.  
  • Democratic
Every full member of ISO has the right to take part in the development of any standard which it judges to be important to its country's economy. No matter what the size or strength of that economy, each participating member in ISO has one vote. Each country is on an equal footing to influence the direction of ISO's work at the strategic level, as well as the technical content of its individual standards.
  • Voluntary
ISO standards are voluntary. As a non-governmental organization, ISO has no legal authority to enforce the implementation of its standards. ISO does not regulate or legislate. However, countries may decide to adopt ISO standards - mainly those concerned with health, safety or the environment - as regulations or refer to them in legislation, for which they provide the technical basis. In addition, although ISO standards are voluntary, they may become a market requirement, as has happened in the case of ISO 9001 quality management systems, or of dimensions of freight containers and bank cards.
ISO itself does not regulate or legislate.
  • Market-driven
ISO only develops standards for which there is a market requirement. The work is mainly carried out by experts from the industrial, technical and business sectors which have asked for the standards, and which subsequently put them to use.
  • Consensus
ISO standards are based on international consensus among the experts in the field. Consensus, like technology, evolves and ISO takes account both of evolving technology and of evolving interests by requiring a periodic review of its standards at least every five years to decide whether they should be maintained, updated or withdrawn. In this way, ISO standards retain their position as the state of the art.
  • Globally relevant
ISO standards are technical agreements which provide the framework for compatible technology worldwide. They are designed to be globally relevant - useful everywhere in the world.
n paper form, an ISO standard is published in A4 format - which is itself one of the ISO standard paper sizes. It may be anywhere between a four-page document and one several hundred pages' long. ISO standards are also available as electronic downloads and many are available as part of a collection on CD or in handbook. An ISO standard carries the ISO logo and the designation, "International Standard
ISO has more than 16 500 International Standards and other types of normative documents in its current portfolio. ISO's work programme ranges from standards for traditional activities, such as agriculture and construction, through mechanical engineering, manufacturing and distribution, to transport, medical devices, information and communication technologies, and to standards for good management practice and for services.
Examples of the benefits standards provide
Standardization of screw threads helps to keep chairs, children's bicycles and aircraft together and solves the repair and maintenance problems caused by a lack of standardization that were once a major headache for manufacturers and product users.
Standards establishing an international consensus on terminology make technology transfer easier and safer. They are an important stage in the advancement of new technologies and dissemination of innovation.
Without the standardized dimensions of freight containers, international trade would be slower and more expensive.
Without the standardization of telephone and banking cards, life would be more complicated.
A lack of standardization may even affect the quality of life itself: for the disabled, for example, when they are barred access to consumer products, public transport and buildings because the dimensions of wheel-chairs and entrances are not standardized.
Standardized symbols provide danger warnings and information across linguistic frontiers.
Consensus on grades of various materials gives a common reference for suppliers and clients in business dealings.
Agreement on a sufficient number of variations of a product to meet most current applications allows economies of scale with cost benefits for both producers and consumers. An example is the standardization of paper sizes.
Standardization of performance or safety requirements of diverse equipment makes sure that users' needs are met while allowing individual manufacturers the freedom to design their own solution on how to meet those needs.
Standardized computer protocols allow products from different vendors to "talk" to each other.
Standardized documents speed up the transit of goods, or identify sensitive or dangerous cargoes that may be handled by people speaking different languages.
Standardization of connections and interfaces of all types ensures the compatibility of equipment of diverse origins and the interoperability of different technologies.
Agreement on test methods allows meaningful comparisons of products, or plays an important part in controlling pollution - whether by noise, vibration or emissions.
Safety standards for machinery protect people at work, at play, at sea... and at the dentist's.
Without the international agreement contained in ISO standards on metric quantities and units, shopping and trade would be haphazard, science would be unscientific and technological development would be handicapped.
The vast majority of ISO standards are highly specific to a particular product, material, or process. However, ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environment) are "generic management system standards". "Generic" means that the same standard can be applied to any organization, large or small, whatever its product or service, in any sector of activity, and whether it is a business enterprise, a public administration, or a government department. ISO 9001 contains a generic set of requirements for implementing a quality management system and ISO 14001 for an environmental management system.
"Conformity assessment" means checking that products, materials, services, systems, processes or people measure up to the specifications of a relevant standard or specification. Today, many products require testing for conformity with specifications or compliance with safety, or other regulations before they can be put on many markets. ISO guides and standards for conformity assessment represent an international consensus on best practice. Their use contributes to the consistency of conformity assessment worldwide and so facilitates trade.
When the large majority of products or services in a particular business or industry sector conform to International Standards, a state of industry-wide standardization exists. The economic stakeholders concerned agree on specifications and criteria to be applied consistently in the classification of materials, in the manufacture and supply of products, in testing and analysis, in terminology and in the provision of services. In this way, International Standards provide a reference framework, or a common technological language, between suppliers and their customers. This facilitates trade and the transfer of technology.
Membership of ISO is open to national standards institutes most representative of standardization in their country (one member in each country).
  • Full members, known as member bodies, each have one vote, whatever the size or strength of the economy of the country concerned.
  • Correspondent members pay reduced membership fees. They are entitled to participate in any policy or technical body as observers, with no voting rights.
  • Subscriber members also pay reduced membership fees. They are institutes from countries with very small economies that nevertheless wish to maintain contact with international standardization.
Although individuals or enterprises are not eligible for membership, both have a range of opportunities for taking part in ISO's work:
  • Individuals may be selected by national member institutes to serve as experts on national delegations participating in ISO technical committees
  • Individuals and enterprises may provide their input during the process of developing a national consensus for presentation by the delegation. This may done through national mirror committees to the corresponding ISO technical committee
  • International organizations and associations, both non-governmental and representing industry sectors, can apply for liaison status to a technical committee. They do not vote, but can participate in the debates and the development of consensus.
·         SO standards are developed by technical committees comprising experts from the industrial, technical and business sectors which have asked for the standards, and which subsequently put them to use. These experts may be joined by representatives of government agencies, testing laboratories, consumer associations, non-governmental organizations and academic circles.
·         The experts participate as national delegations, chosen by the ISO national member institute for the country concerned. These delegations are required to represent not just the views of the organizations in which their participating experts work, but of other stakeholders too.
·         According to ISO rules, the member institute is expected to take account of the views of the range of parties interested in the standard under development. This enables them to present a consolidated, national consensus position to the technical committee.
·         The national delegations of experts of a technical committee meet to discuss, debate and argue until they reach consensus on a draft agreement. This is circulated as a Draft International Standard (DIS) to ISO's membership as a whole for comment and balloting.
·         Many members have public review procedures for making draft standards known and available to interested parties and to the general public. The ISO members then take account of any feedback they receive in formulating their position on the draft standard.
·         If the voting is in favour, the document, with eventual modifications, is circulated to the ISO members as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). If that vote is positive, the document is then published as an International Standard.
·         Every working day of the year, an average of eight ISO meetings are taking place somewhere in the world. In between meetings, the experts continue the standards' development work by correspondence. Increasingly, their contacts are made by electronic means and some ISO technical bodies have already gone over entirely to working electronically, which speeds up the development of standards and cuts travel costs.
·         The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment (cause adverse changes to air, water, or land), comply with applicable laws and regulations.
·         ISO 14001 is the international specification for an environmental management system (EMS). It specifies requirements for establishing an environmental policy, determining environmental aspects and impacts of products/activities/services, planning environmental objectives and measurable targets, implementation and operation of programs to meet objectives and targets, checking and corrective action, and management review.
·         ISO 14000 is similar to ISO 9000 quality management in that both pertain to the process (the comprehensive outcome of how a product is produced) rather than to the product itself. The overall idea is to establish an organized approach to systematically reduce the impact of the environmental aspects which an organization can control. Effective tools for the analysis of environmental aspects of an organization and for the generation of options for improvement are provided by the concept of Cleaner Production.
·         As with ISO 9000, certification is performed by third-party organizations rather than being awarded by ISO directly. The ISO 19011 audit standard applies when auditing for both 9000 and 14000 compliance at once.
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