How are standards developed?
Standards are complex documents, involving a lot of work and consultation. Charles Corrie, business program manager at BSI Standards Development takes us through the procedures that create an international standard
The ISO 9000 standards are developed by ISO, are then adopted by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and by BSI, before being published as the BS EN ISO 9000 series of standards.
What are the main elements of the development process, and how can individuals participate in the process?
Expert representation
ISO is an association of standards bodies from 148 countries. It is a hierarchical organization and works on a representational basis. Each country selects a single organization to represent it in ISO's proceedings (eg BSI for the UK).
The selected organization is expected to provide and brief delegations to ISO's technical committee meetings, as well as to nominate and support experts to working groups.
CEN is an association of 28 countries from the EU and the European Free Trade Association. It is hierarchical and works on a 'country' representational basis.
BSI also works on a representational basis, where only trade associations, professional institutes, government departments etc may attend national technical committee meetings, but individual organizations or companies may not be represented.
Following procedures
Due to the potential effects on business and international trade ISO, CEN and BSI develop standards based on a consensus, through formal procedures.
There are distinct types of procedure:
- those dealing with the constitution of technical committees, their working practices, decision- making rules, rules of appeal, and project timescales
- those that deal with the structure and presentation of standards
A lot of effort is made to harmonize procedures between international standards bodies. This mainly applies to the creation of general rules for the structure and presentation of standards. However, the constitutional rules have had to remain separated, as there are some key differences between the different organizations:
- ISO uses a system of 'one country, one vote' during the balloting of draft standards
- CEN works on a system of weighted voting, depending on the population sizes of the countries involved
- national standards bodies have a choice to adopt an ISO standard as a national standard or not, but they are required to adopt CEN standards as national standards, if they are a member of CEN
Table 1
Organization standard procedure titles and website addresses
Developing standards
There are five steps a standard has to go through. These are:
- initiation
- drafting
- enquiry/public review
- confirmation
- publication
There are obstacles to be negotiated before standards bodies can commit to developing a standard.
Standardization has to be viewed within the context of limited resources and political pressures.
There are formal international controls which decide who can propose. These are:
- a project (eg a national standards body)
- a requirement that market-based justification for the proposal is presented
- a ballot to confirm that the members want to support such work
- the need for a minimum number of members (five countries) to participate in the work
BSI uses a formal national project acceptance process, which also requires market-based support for any proposal.
When a project is initiated, it is assigned to a technical committee which begins developing the standard. The technical committee will:
- establish a working group
- appoint a project leader
- ask for experts to be nominated from national standard bodies
The working group develops a series of working drafts, until the project leader is satisfied that they have reached a reasonable state of maturity of the text. Next the standard is given back to the technical committee for review. Now ISO will refer to the draft as a 'committee draft' (CD).
It will be subject to a three month consultation and vote by the national standards bodies that are members of the committee. At this stage, in contrast to ISO, CEN still refer to the standard as a working draft and send it to the members of the technical committee for review and comment, but not ballot.
At BSI, a technical committee establishes a panel of key experts to do the initial drafting. When BSI receives a draft from either ISO or CEN, it sends the draft to the national technical committee that is responsible for shadowing the work. This committee comments on the draft and the UK's voting position on the document.
When the draft is accepted by the technical committee in CEN, or achieves a majority vote in ISO, it proceeds to the enquiry stage. The technical committee uses the comments from the national standards bodies to prepare a revised draft.
Drafts will circulate among all ISO's members for a five month ballot, and for a six month ballot among the CEN members.
At national UK level, BSI passes the draft to the relevant shadow committee to prepare comments and a ballot position on it. Any standard that will become a British Standard must be available as a 'draft for public comment' (DPC), for a minimum of three months. For draft international standards, these are usually circulated as DPCs at the enquiry stage.
Notification of the availability of such DPCs is given in BSI's journal Standards Update which is published monthly. Anyone can submit comment on a DPC.
On completion of the enquiry stage, a draft then moves to the formal vote stage, for confirmation. For both ISO and CEN, the draft is subject to a two month ballot among all their members.
Unless a country is voting against the draft, no comments are permitted at this stage. The draft would have to achieve a greater than 75 per cent majority to be accepted by ISO, and in CEN a greater than 71 per cent majority of the weighted votes. If the vote is successful the draft goes forward to publication.
When a standard intended for sole use in the UK completes the 'draft for public comment' stage, any comments submitted are reviewed, before the final text is edited and published.
After an ISO standard completes the formal vote stage, the national technical committee decides if it should be adopted as a national standard.
When a CEN standard has been approved at the formal vote stage, it must be adopted as a British standard. This rule must be obeyed even if the UK had voted against the draft.
Table 2
The development stages for ISO, CEN and BSI standards
About the author
Since 1993 Charles Corrie has been the BSI seconded secretary to ISO/TC
176/SC 2, which is responsible for the development of ISO 9001 and
ISO 9004. He has played a part in the development of both the 1994
and 2000 editions of those standards.
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