The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a non-governmental
organization formed in 1947 to promote worldwide standardization through
the adoption of standards in all important areas of human activity.
Widely used examples of standards developed under ISO include the
standardized format of telephone and banking cards which allows the
cards to be used worldwide, and standardized codes for the names of
countries, currencies and languages. ISO Acting Secretary General
is Dr. Christian J. Favre.
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ISO,
IEC and ITU work together on telecommunications standards
such as those for Internet and multimedia applications.
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ISO is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from
some 130 countries, one from each country. Its members represent
95 percent of the world's industrial production. The U.S. member
is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in New York,
a private nonprofit organization with close links to the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the U.S. Department
of Commerce. ISO is not part of the United Nations, but collaborates
closely with the U.N., especially with the International Telecommunication
Union.
The need for international standardization stems from the growth
of world trade, and is the logical result of a process which began
centuries ago when standards of weight and measure were developed
by individual communities.
Industrialization led to more formalized company standards, and
then to national standards. International standards - ISO's prime
objective - was the next logical step.
ISO has some 2,850 technical working bodies, in which 30,000 experts
from industry, labor, government, and standardization bodies in
all parts of the world develop new standards and revise existing
standards as necessary.
Between 1947 and 1999, ISO published more than 12,500 international
standards covering a whole variety of items that affect daily life.
These include, for example, automobile bumper heights, sizes and
colors of road signs, hygiene and toxicity in the food industry,
test methods in the health sphere, ski-boot bindings, nut and bolt
combinations, light measurement in photography, child-resistant
packaging, and aircraft and space vehicles.
Standards have also been developed for monitoring the state of
the environment and ensuring safety at work (for example, standards
for protective clothing, safety of machinery). The scope of ISO
is not limited to any particular branch; it covers all technical
fields except electrical and electronic engineering which is the
responsibility of IEC.
ISO standards contribute to making the development, manufacturing
and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner.
The contribute to making trade between countries easier and fairer,
and they provide governments with a technical base for health, safety
and environmental legislation.
In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC (electrical
and electronics standards - see below) have joined forces to provide
standards to facilitate interconnection and communication between
personal computers, word processors and other industrial, commercial
and domestic systems. Other joint ISO/IEC international standards
deal with "smart cards" - integrated circuit cards such
as financial transaction cards (for payphones and retail banking)
and personal identification cards and machine readable passports.
Both the ISO and IEC work with the ITU (International Telecommunication
Union) on telecommunications standards, such as those for multimedia
applications.
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International
Organization for Standardization
Standards for Quality Management and
Environmental Management
ISO standards have traditionally addressed
tangibles, such as compatibility and safety of equipment used
in industry, or requirements and test methods for equipment
and materials ranging from health care devices to petroleum
products.
In 1987 the organization broke new ground
when it issued its first set of standards for quality management
and quality assurance: the ISO 9000 core series. The standards
represent an international consensus on the essential features
of a quality system to ensure the effective operation of any
business. In 1996 a similar set of standards -- the ISO 14000
series -- were published to address various aspects of environmental
management. Up to the end of 1998 more than 270,000 ISO 9000
certificates and nearly 79,000 ISO 14000 certificates had
been granted worldwide.
ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 are what is known as
generic management system standards. They focus on the process
of work, rather than on the output, or products produced by
that work.
The ISO 9000 series includes models for quality
assurance in design, development, production, installation,
servicing, final inspection and testing. They are applicable
not only to hardware-type product industries, but also to
software industries and to service industries such as banking,
health care, or tourism.
ISO 14000 is a series of international, voluntary
environmental management standards. The first standard in
the series, ISO 14001, provies the outline for creating an
Environmental Management System (EMS), a systematic approach
to dealing with the environmental aspects of an organization.
ISO does not itself issue certificates of
conformity to ISO 9000 or ISO 14,000 series standards. In
most countries the assessment of quality systems is entrusted
to third-party registration bodies.
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Internet
www.iso.ch
Information on ISO's organization and activities, plus the full
catalogue of ISO International Standards and draft International
Standards (DIS), updated weekly.
Address
International Organization for Standardization
P.O. Box 56
Street address: 1, rue de Varembé‚
CH-1211 Geneva 20
e-mail: central@iso.ch
Tel. 749.0111
Fax. 733.3430
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