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2016 World Standards Day

Oct 112016

Each year on 14 October, the members of the IEC, ISO and ITU celebrate World Standards Day, which is a means of paying tribute to the collaborative efforts of the thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as international standards.

This year have chosen the motto:

“Standards build trust”

Standards connect us with reliable modes of communication, codes of practice and trusted frameworks for cooperation. Introducing common interpretations on reciprocal sides of a communication or transaction, standards are essential to mutually beneficial trade and resource efficient international commerce.

A product or service conforming to an international standard is imbued with a trusted symbol of quality, safety or compatibility. Standards speak to the diversity of our interconnected world, introducing uniformity at the interfaces where we need to be certain that we are speaking on the same terms.

From AFTA we want to support this kind of initiatives, which represent the consensus view of the world’s leading experts in industry sectors, who puts their knowledge voluntarily on the public interest.

2015 World Standards Day

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Oct 142015

Today, 14 October 2015, World Standards Day is celebrated; IEC, ISO and ITU this year have chosen the motto “standards: the world’s common language” and the essential role that standards play in transactions, providing a common language through the world.

CEN and CENELEC StandarDays 21 and 22 April 2015

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Apr 222015

21 and 22 April, CEN/CENELEC holds in Brussels, 2-day training to discover the world of European Standards.

Yesterday they tried among other things, why and how to get involved in standardization, different solutions for different needs and new trends in European Standardization.

Today, 22 April, they are talking about standards for the services sector, to support global trade, for intellectual property rights and the use of standardization as a compliance tool with essential requirements by drawing up Technical Specifications.

All participants in StandarDays will also receive a certificate, to show that they have completed their training in European standardization.

EURAS Copenhagen 2015

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Feb 272015

EURAS, the European Academy for Standardisation e.V., will hold its 20th conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 22 to 24 June 2015 under the theme ‘The Role of Standards in Transatlantic Trade and Regulation’. The theme of the conference is “The role of standards in transatlantic trade and regulation“.

The conference focuses amongst other on TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) – a highly important and topical political project with a great number of challenges related to standardization e.g. the importance for economics, public health, innovation, regulation, the environment, etc.

One of the guest speakers on the conference theme will be Scott Steedman, Director of Standards at British Standards Institution (BSI).

The deadline for submitting papers to the conference has been extended until the 9th of March 2015.

Further information about EURAS 2015 can be found on the conference website.

EURAS is a European society for standardization research. EURAS’ objective is to promote research, education and publication in the field of standardisation.

About Standardization

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Mar 282014

Since AFTA Training Campaign was launched, in order to verify the knowledge grade of the students about standardization, I always state the following questions during the workshop:

What is a standard?

What is it useful for?

Is it mandatory?

Who develops standards?

Although I receive several different answers, some of them really funny, the background is mostly the same:

A standard is something you have to obey

Generally they are developed to limit something

Of course it is mandatory

The current forces in power

As I am driving home I usually think about the workshop and I have reached the following conclusions:

First of all, the students do not seem to be familiar with standardization processes. It is understandable and it is probably one of the reasons why they have attended the workshop. Second conclusion is that they do not have a positive opinion of standards. They are developed to control and limit. Third conclusion is that students suppose that it is always someone else who establish those “impositions”.

According to my experience, the ideas shown by the students are not different to the general opinion of most Spanish companies. Standards are perceived as something foreign and complicated.

As we already published two months ago, this week took place in Brussels StandarDays 2014. The main objective of the event was to give a clear and structured overview of the European Standardization System, so that questions like the following could be answered:

– What is a standard? Who are CEN, CENELEC, ISO, etc.?

– How can standards support global trade?

– What is a Keymark? What is CE Marking?

– Which are the differences between standards and legislations?

– How can standards help companies to innovate?

The rest of presentations can be accessed through the following link.

From AFTA, we would like to stress the importance of such an event, which is able to change the current negative perception of standards and help companies to admit their importance and to introduce them as a key part of their strategic planning.

Roberto Oliva

Director

Regulation 1025/2012 about European Standardization

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Dec 122012

On January 1st 2013 there will come into force Regulation 1025/2012, which establishes the new legal frame for the European standardization and represents a resounding support and political recognition of the European Institutions and Members States to the standardization activity.

The Regulation can be downloaded here.

AENOR has published an article in order to inform about its most relevant aspects and implications, such as the clues of standardization of the following years. This article can be consulted through the following link.