ISO – A brief introduction

First established in 1947 as a non-governmental organization, ISO represents a network of national standards institutes from over 140 different countries, working in partnership with organisations, governments, industries, and business around the globe.

Deriving from the Greek term “Isos”, meaning “equal”, ISO has been the source of standards such as ISO:9000 and over 13,700 other international standards for business, government and safety.

ISAF and sailing in general have a keen interest in the work undertaken by the 2,850 different technical committee’s, sub-committee’s and working groups. These committee’s are represented by over 30,000 qualified representatives of industry, research institutes, governments, and consumer bodies from across the world, which come together as equal partners in the quest for global standardization.

ISO holds it HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, where its Central Secretariat controls the flow of documentation to relevant parties, provides clarification of technical points to secretariats and chairmen, and ensures that all agreements approved by the technical committees are edited, printed and distributed as draft International Standards to ISO member bodies for voting and publishing. The Central Secretariat coordinates the meetings of all of the technical committee’s and sub-committees including the time and the place and due to the extent of the technical work undertaken, there are at least a dozen ISO meetings taking place, on average, somewhere in the world for every working day of the year.

Each of the 146 member bodies has a right to be represented on a committee that it has an interest in, where international organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, may also take part in the work of the ISO

Developing an ISO Standard

There are three main principles according to which ISO standards are developed.

These are:

Consensus – The views of all interests are taken into account: manufacturers, vendors and users, consumer groups, testing laboratories, governments, engineering professions and research organisations.

Industry-Wide – Global solutions to satisfy industries and customers worldwide.

Voluntary – International standardization is market driven and therefore based on voluntary involvement of all interests in the market place.

Once one of these principles has been satisfied then there is a three step development process before a final standard is reached. Generally, an industry sector will usually express its need for a standard in its area to its National member body. The latter proposes the new work item to ISO as a whole who, having agreed on the need for a new International Standard, highlights the technical groups which would have to work on the definition of the technical scope of the new standard. This phase is usually carried out by working groups which comprise of technical experts from countries interested in the new standard.
Once the technical aspects of the standard have been agreed, the second phase of refinement is carried out. This involves all of the member countries negotiate the detailed specifications of the standard. This is the consensus-building phase.
The final phase comprises the formal approval of the resulting draft International Standard, where two thirds of the ISO members that have participated actively in the development process and 75% of all members that vote must approve the draft Standard. Following this acceptance the agreed text is published as an ISO International Standard.

ISO and You

ISO have produced many worldwide standards which you use every day in normal activities which you may not be aware of!

ISO have created standards ranging from the different paper sizes such as A4 and A3 to the worldwide acceptance of telephone and banking cards which enable you to get money out of any machine in the world. Other everyday devices such as the Universal System of Measurement, which defines the seven standard codes of measurement including m, kg, s, A, K, mol and cd, are used in the shopping and trade industries, which without them, would be severely handicapped.

ISO are also very keen to promote safety standards where possible, including the specification of different methods of manufacture and also the standardization of building materials such as the size of screw threads. This also influences the different methods of yacht manufacture as areas such as cockpits draining specifications, deck fittings and rigging parts, galley stoves and various others.

ISAF at the ISO - ISO STANDARDS

ISAF have a keen interest in much of the ISO’s work but in particular that of the Technical Committee – TC/188 which is responsible for standards involving Small Craft. This area of work is very often forgotten and it is surprising to look at the depth of the subjects that the Small Craft Committee has been involved in. Items range from dealing with seacocks and hull fittings to owners manuals and steering systems.

Below are some of the major papers regarding small craft which have been accepted as an ISO standard.