A11103 0721=15

NATL INST OF STANDARDS & TECH R.I.C.

A1 11 030721 95

Svmooslum on Interna/Symposium on Intern QC100 .U57 N0.579, 1980 C.1 NBS-PUB-C 1£

Symposium on International

Standards Information

and ISONET

NBS Special Publication 579
NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

The National Bureau of Standards' was established by an act ot Congress on March 3, 1901. The Bureau's overall goal is to strengthen and advance the Nation's science and technology

and facilitate their effective application for public benefit. To this end, the Bureau conducts

research and provides: (1) a basis for the Nation's physical measurement system, (2) scientific and technological services for industry and government, (3) a technical basis for equity in trade, and (4) technical services to promote public safety. The Bureau's technical work is per- formed by the National Measurement Laboratory, the National Engineering Laboratory, and

the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology.

THE NATIONAL MEASUREMENT LABORATORY provides the national system of

physical and chemical and materials measurement; coordinates the system with measurement

systems of other nations and furnishes essential services leading to accurate and uniform

physical and chemical measurement throughout the Nation's scientific community, industry,

and commerce; conducts materials research leading to improved methods of measurement,

standards, and data on the properties of materials needed by industry, commerce, educational

institutions, and Government; provides advisory and research services to other Government

agencies; develops, produces, and distributes Standard Reference Materials; and provides

calibration services. The Laboratory consists of the following centers:

Absolute Physical Quantities 2 — Radiation Research — Thermodynamics and

Molecular Science — Analytical Chemistry — Materials Science. THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING LABORATORY provides technology and technical ser- vices to the public and private sectors to address national needs and to solve national problems; conducts research in engineering and applied science in support of these efforts; builds and maintains competence in the necessary disciplines required to carry out this research and technical service; develops engineering data and measurement capabilities;

provides engineering measurement traceability services; develops test methods and proposes

engineering standards and code changes; develops and proposes new engineering practices;

and develops and improves mechanisms to transfer results of its research to the ultimate user. The Laboratory consists of the following centers:

Applied Mathematics — Electronics and Electrical Engineering2 — Mechanical

Engineering and Process Technology1 — Building Technology — Fire Research —

Consumer Product Technology — Field Methods.

THE INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY conducts

research and provides scientific and technical services to aid Federal agencies in the selection,

acquisition, application, and use of computer technology to improve effectiveness and

economy in Government operations in accordance with Public Law 89-306 (40 U.S.C. 759), relevant Executive Orders, and other directives; carries out this mission by managing the Federal Information Processing Standards Program, developing Federal ADP standards

guidelines, and managing Federal participation in ADP voluntary standardization activities; provides scientific and technological advisory services and assistance to Federal agencies; and

provides the technical foundation for computer-related policies of the Federal Government.

The Institute consists of the following centers:

Programming Science and Technology — Computer Systems Engineering.

'Headquarters and Laboratories at Gaithersburg, MD, unless otherwise noted; mailing address Washington, DC 20234.

; Some divisions within the center are located at Boulder, CO 80303.
Information and ISONET

Proceedings of a Symposium

-Held at the National Bureau of Standards,

Gaithersburg, Maryland, October 11-12, 1979

HATlOJfXL BDBEAD

Or 9TAK9AJSD3

UBRABT

Symposium on International Standards JUN 1 5 1981

!

Edited by

Charles B. Phucas

Office of Engineering Standards

National Engineering Laboratory

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D.C. 20234

Sponsored in part by:

American National Standards Institute 1430 Broadway

New York, NY 10018

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Philip M. Klutznick, Secretary

Luther H. Hodges, Jr., Deputy Secretary

Jordan J. Baruch, Assistant Secretary for Productivity, Technology and Innovation

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS, Ernest Ambler, Director

ssued June 1980
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-600073

National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 579

Nat. Bur. Stand. (U.S.), Spec. Publ. 579, 61 pages (June 1980) CODEN: XNBSAV

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1980

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402

Price $3.50

(Add 25 percent additional for other than U.S. mailing)
Preface

Over the past several years, the American National Standards Institute and the National

Bureau of Standards have been working cooperatively with the International Organization

for Standardization (ISO) to provide United States input to the development of an International Standards Information Network called ISONET. The ISONET concept involves

cooperative information exchange agreements between national standards information

centers (ISONET members) covering national and international standards as well as technical regulations and related "standardizing" documents. The primary purpose of

ISONET is to promote international trade by providing rapid access to reliable information concerning standards and other technical requirements applicable to exported

and imported products.

Recent events in the United States, including the enactment of the Trade Agreements

Act of 1979, have brought increased national attention to the need for improved

mechanisms for exchange of information on standards, technical regulations, and

certification systems on a worldwide basis. Title IV, Technical Barriers to Trade

(Standards) , of the Trade Agreements Act directs the National Bureau of Standards to

maintain a national standards information center to "serve as the central national

collection facility for information relating to standards activities, whether such

standards, systems, or activities are public, private, domestic, or foreign, or international, regional, national, or local."

Participants in this Symposium had an opportunity to learn more about existing international standards information systems as well as the plans for the further development of ISONET. Through question and answer discussions, participants were able to

learn about new developments in U.S. trade policy, especially those policies pertaining to standards and certification systems. A special session on Friday,

October 12, was devoted to presentations and discussion by representatives from ISO,

France, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface iii

Executive Summary vii

U.S. Implementation of GATT Trade 'Policies and the GATT Standards Code

Donald S. Abelson, Office of the U.S. Special Trade Representative 1

NATO Objectives for Standards Harmonization

Donald Mitchell, Department of Defense 7

Capabilities Presentation—Information Services for Exporters

Rudy Rutelionis, International Marketing /Information Handling Services .... 9

Providing Information Services to Exporters

Brian Roden, British Standards Institute 11

To Promote International Trade by Providing Rapid Access to Reliable Information

Jerry Lieblich, Global Engineering Documentation Services 13

Standards and Technical Regulations - The International Solution

E. J. French, International Organization for Standardization 17

Standards and Technical Regulation - The Information Problem

Edward Kierski, General Secretary of Polski Komitet Normalizacji i Miar ... 23

Statement - Presented Before The Symposium on International Standards

Information and ISONET

Curt Mohr, DIN-Deutsches Institut fur Normung e.V 25

Presentation on the Standards Council of Canada and Their Role in

Information Exchange

Albert A. Tunis, Standards Council of Canada 27

A Small Country in the World of Standards

Gudbrand Jenssen, Norges Standardisringsforbund 35

AFNOR and Information About Standards and Related Matter

Daniel Geroniiri, Association Francaise de Normalisation 39

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Speakers 41

Appendix A

Trade Agreements Act of 1979

Statements of Administrative Action 43

Appendix B

ISONET Constitution

Second Edition 53

vi
Executive Summary

The jointly sponsored ANSI/NBS symposium on International Standards Information and

ISONET was held on October 11 and 12, 1979 at NBS.

Dr. John W. Lyons, Director of the National Engineering Laboratory, NBS, gave the

welcoming remarks and Dr. Lawrence D. Eicher, Director, Office of Engineering Standards,

gave an overview of the Symposium Program. Mr. Donald Abelson, Office of the Special

Trade Representative, discussed the U.S. implementation of the General Agreement on

Tariff and Trade (GATT) trade policies and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to

Trade (GATT Standards Code) . Mr. Donald Mitchell, Deputy Director, DMSSO, Department

of Defense, gave his presentation on the NATO objectives for Standards harmonization.

The next portion of the Symposium was devoted to, "Information Services for Exporters."

The speakers included were from two U.S. private companies: Global Engineering

Services and Information Handling Services. Also, a speaker from the Department of

Commerce's Industry and Trade Administration participated in this session along with

a representative from the British Standards Institute's Technical Help to Exporters

(THE) program.

During the second day of the Symposium panel discussions were held on the subject of

ISONET, which is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) information

network that is presently under development. The ISONET idea involves cooperative

information exchange agreements between national standards information centers

(ISONET members) covering national and international standards as well as technical

regulations and related "standardizing" documents. Panel members represented:

the International Standards Organization, Mr. French, the Information Committee of

ISO-INFCO, Mr. Kierski, the Deutsches Institut fur Normung (DIN), Mr. Mohr, the

British Standards Institute (BSD , Mr. Roden, the Standards Council of Canada (SCC)

,

Mr. Tunis, the Norges Standardiseringsforbund (NSF) , Mr. Jenssen, the Association

Francaise de Normalisation (AFNOR) , Mr. Geronimi.

The comments presented by the domestic and international guests are published herein

for your information.

vii

U.S. B^LEMENTATIGN OF GATT TRADE POLICIES

AND THE GATT STANDARDS CODE

Mr. Donald S. Abelson, Office of the U.S.

Special Trade Representative

I am here as a trade specialist — a person

who, in fact, has an orientation in trade

policy, to address people who have a very

specialized expertise in technical matters - standards. In a way, I think that the

kind of forum and subject that I am addressing are almost opposite one another.

The concepts I deal with involve liberalizing trade, and providing an opportunity and

environment within the world ccrtrnunity for

trade. Many of the concepts you deal with

are very technical, dealing with specific

regulations, specifications and tests for

products or with determining of the safety

of products. Yet, of course, the two

issues are directly linked. Reference was

made to the Federal Trade Commission and,

of course, reference was made to the work

of my Office. Both of these activities

involve investigations of standards, regulations, certification systems, etc. —

what I call standards-related activities —

and their impact on trade.

Previously, in the international sphere it

had been recognized that tariffs, duties

assessed on codes as they cross national

borders, created trade barriers. The

higher the duty, the more difficult it is

for a purchaser in the importing country

to pay for the product — very simple. The

last five rounds of the Multilateral Trade

Negotiations (MTN) , which took place in

Geneva under the auspices of the General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) , have

been on tariffs. After the Kennedy Round,

which ended in the mid 1960's, there was a realization that there were other issues

that affected trade, such as non-tariff

barriers (NTB) ; thus , the GATT developed an

inventory over a period of over five years

of issues that created non-tariff barriers.

One of the most important areas, I think it

included about one-third of all the notifications to this inventory, involved

standards — technical regulations. I also

include in that definition (again I'll say

standards-related activities) both

mandatory and voluntary certification aysterns; quality assurance programs, marking,

labeling, and packaging requirements; terminology; and symbols. Thus, I'm being very

broad when I use the word "standards."

You can see how standards can be a barrier

to trade; if, for instance the French have

a standard for forklift trucks, developed

unilaterally, that is very different from

the European regional standard and very

different from our standard, of course we

can't ship our trucks to France unless we

market and produce them specifically to the

French standard. And if we have spent time

working with the community on developing

such a standard and the French take this

unilateral action, we can't even market

the products that were specifically manufactured for European market. In such a

case, the French have created a trade

barrier. The efforts of the U.S. Government in this area were, in fact, to try to

create an environment, and to actually

draft a document that would prevent such a French action. That is indeed what the

task standards trade negotiators were. The negotiations were a series of discussions on a draft document of principles

that should be used in the development of

standards. The document in no way ref- erences any specific standards. It talks

about how to develop standards as opposed

to what each standard should be. These

are, however, very important principles,

which came out of a direct problem that the

United States has with the Europeans in

terms of a regional certification system

for electronic components. As I understand

it, the system started out as a tripartite

certification arrangement between the

British, the French, and the Germans. The

certifications done in each of the three

countries would be accepted in each of the

other countries. Fine, no problem with

that. But there was a hitch: only products

produced in one of the three countries

could be certified by the system; so it was closed. A basic principle of the GATT

specifies that Most Favored Nation (MFN)

treatment shall be accorded to all participating countries. That means a country

1
cannot discriminate between products coming

from two different countries if they both

share or are given Most Favored Nation

treatment. The tripartite arrangement

broke that principle. Also, there's a

principle of trade, called a National

Treatment Clause, a country shall afford

equal treatment to products produced in a

foreign country as to products

produced within its borders. Of course,

the tripartite agreement breaks that principle. The Europeans came back to us and

said, "That might be so; however, in order

to establish a certification arrangement we

have had to undergo a series of negotiations regarding the acceptance of each

other's certification marks, thereby liberalizing trade within our countries. When we are ready and when you can meet our

standards, we will let you in." That's

perfectly reasonable in a way. In order

to enter into a certification agreement you

must determine what qualifications are

necessary. However, we had no part in the

development of the rules - we would be

allowed into their systems under their

rules - which caused us a great deal of problems. European standards for electronic

and electrical components are very different from ours ,

, and what they were saying was that you comply with us - our rules - and we will let you in. Therefore, when

this issue was raised in the late 1960 's,

the American National Standards Institute,

the U.S. National Committee to the International Electro-Technical Commission (IEC)

,

the Electronic Industries Association, the

Office of Product Standards, and my Office

(the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative) became interested in changing the course of events and seeing what we could

do. It was at that point that two things

happened: (1) we began discussions on the

standards code, which was drafted between

1971 and 1973; and (2) discussions began on

the development of an international quality

assurance system for eletronic components,

the IECQ. (I'll leave aside the IECQ,

since it's not my responsibility. It's a private sector initiative.)

The original standards code negotiations

took place over two years; we approached

the Europeans and said "Open up your

certification systems." Openness: the

key tenet of the U.S. position—openness.

They responded with: "Well, we're not

quite sure about that. As we told you, we

have to negotiate; there are problems

involved. But we'll talk to you about the

U.S. using international standards. " The

U.S. does not generally use international

standards. In the past, all we did was go to international standards meetings

and, even though a standard might not be

exactly what we'd use here (in fact, was

inconsistent with our standard) , for the

purpose of promoting international standardization, we might vote for its approval.

Thus, we might approve an international

standard knowing full well we would never use it. The European's pointed a finger

at us and said, "Use them." We came back

to them and said, "Fine. We'll talk to

you about that, but what about the use of

open procedures? You know, what about

publication of a notification that you're

going to develop a standard and receiving

comments on the proposal." And they said,

"Well we don't know about that. We don't

really do that. Around here what we do is

call up a friend who develops a standard

and then it's issued; but we'll think

about it. Why don't you participate more

often in international standardization

activities?" We said, "Well, you know,

it's pretty far to go over to Geneva. For

you it's just a flight from Brussels, or from Paris, or from London, but for us it's

from Washington. We'll think about it, but we want you to provide more information on your standards-copies of them. Publish the

final copy. Let's have an information network developed, perhaps under the auspices

of the GAIT." They said, "Fine, we'll

think about it." The last thing they said

to us was, "This is all well and good; but

what about your States and what about the

private sector? When you negotiate with

us (this is the French speaking) you're

negotiating with a central government

2
whose responsibility covers standards

activities across the board—everybody.

When we negotiate with you, Washington, are

you talking for Cleveland, Ohio, and

Spokane, Washington, and Santa Barbara,

California, or when it comes to something

that has to do with Arizona, are you going

to say, 'Well, States rights'? And what is

this thing called the American National

Standards Institute, the American Society

for Testing and Materials and, Underwriters

Laboratories? How do they fold into this

whole process?" We said we will comply with

the GATT principle requiring us to do everything within our power to ensure the

compliance of states. They said, "We know

what that is—everything in your power—you

write a letter from the Secretary of State

and that's it." That is a basic review of

the history of the standards code. The

negotiations took eight years from the time

they began to the time it was signed.

The U.S. entered into the negotiations in

Geneva under the authorization provided in

the Trade Act of 1974. The Trade Act said,

"Go ahead, Mr. President, you may enter into

these negotiations to reduce trade barriers,

but when you're finished, we the Congress,

will have some very specific instructions

for you on how to implement these agreements." I'll get back to that later.

The final document that evolved from the

discussions in Geneva, is officially en- titled the Agreement on Technical Barriers

to Trade. It has basically what I consider

to be eight or nine substantive provisions,

information and assistance provisions, and

finally a section on enforcement. The substantive provisions can be divided into

three parts—those dealing with standards,

those dealing with conformity to standards

(i.e., testing) and, finally, those with

certification. Each of the three parts are broken down into three parts themselves

regarding the activities of Central Governments, State governments, and private

bodies. The Federal Government, in developing standards, shall not discriminate against

imported products. Standards developed by

the Federal Government shall not be created

to, nor have the effect of creatinq trade

barriers.

The Federal Government shall participate in

relevant international standards bodies; it

shall develop, when appropriate, standards

based on performance rather than design

criteria; it shall use appropriate

international standards; and when it does

not use international standards, it shall use open procedures. With regard to those

other two levels—the states and the private

sector—the code requires that the Federal

Government shall use "best efforts" to

ensure the compliance of the states and the

private sector.

With regard to testing, the code says that

Central Governments shall, when they test

products within their borders, not discriminate against imported products. However,

it is also recognized that the best way to

alleviate or to get rid of trade barriers

between countries when it comes to testing

is to enter into arrangements on the accept- ance of foreign test data, foreign

certificates, or marks of conformity. In

order to enter into such arrangements, you

must enter into negotiations. The code

goes on to say that with regard to the

testing activities of States and the private

sector, the Central Government shall use

its best efforts to ensure their compliance.

Then, finally, with regard to certification

systems, the code says that they shall be

open, just as we discussed with regard to

standards-riot creating trade barriers or

having the purpose of creating trade

barriers—and that certification systems,

whether of a national or regional nature,

shall grant "access", in other words be

open to suppliers from all adherents to the

standards code. That's what the U.S. entered into negotiations to get. It goes back

to the tripartite agreement. There can be

no tripartite agreement under the standards

code because you cannot maintain a system

that is not, at least, open to everybody

who signs the standards code.

There are other provisions to the standards

code which involve the treatment of information, technical assistance, and developing

countries. An important element of the

information provisions, from the U.S. point

of view, involves the National Bureau of

Standards. The standards code provides for an information network (a flow of information

to and from adherents to the code)

3
The United States must be able to provide

standards of the private sector, the State

government, and the Federal Government, and

must provide rules of certification systems,

and post notices of standards and certification activities. And, of course, in order

to get the benefit of the standards code, we should have at our fingertips information on foreign national, regional, and

international activities. We must be able

to have access to all that kind of information—it's two-sided.

Finally, the standards code has a dispute

settlement mechanism. That's enforcement.

What good is an agreement—we're talking

about a document about 50 pages long—what

good is a piece of paper like this unless

there is some way to put it into effect and

to use sanctions when a violation occurs?

But how do you do that? How do you enforce

a document that deals with technical issues?

If it's merely a question of a violation of one of the cede provisions: did a country

publish a notification or not? That seems to be relatively clear-cut. Same would go

for whether a country provided openness in

its regional or national certification

systems or not? However, standards issues can also be very technical. We had a problem with the Japanese which involved the

spraying of our oranges with a chemical

to prevent rotting, TBZ. The Japanese

said, "I'm sorry, the level of TBZ in the

skin of your oranges (which you peel off,

of course) is too high for our Japanese

standards. We won't permit it." We said,

"That's a trade problem. We know Japanese

demand for our oranges is high. A glass of

fresh orange juice costs $4. You're just

using the chemical issue as a way of preventing access to the market." They said,

"Absolutely not. This is a health and

safety issue." What do you do? That is

not a clear-cut case. Is it a health and

safety issue or is it not? Where do you

go? The standards code dispute settlement

mechanism recognizes that there are clearcut policy issues which violate a clear-cut

code obligation, but that there are also

technical issues. Thus, the code contains

two kinds of dispute settlement mechanisms.

Basically, dispute settlement goes like

this: You have to complain. If somebody

in the United States has a complaint about

a French standard (the forklift standard,

let's say) , they would come to the U.S.

Government, which would go to the French

Government, and request consultations:

let's talk about it, let's sit around a

table, let's discuss it on a bilateral

basis. That's where resolutions should

take place, hopefully. That's the best

forum. For arguments sake, though, let's

say it doesn't work. We would then say to

the French Government that we are going to

complain officially under the standards

code. We want the Committee on Technical

Barriers to Trade (a body established under

the code, with one representative frcm each

signatory) to discuss this issue. The

Committee meets; they would establish a panel or technical group depending on the

nature of the case. The French might claim

for safety reasons they must require air

bags in all cars. Although they may claim

"safety" - we could still allege their

practice to be a trade barrier. Thus, a technical group might meet. The members of

the group would not be from any of the

countries that are a party to the dispute,

and they would be scientists experts in the

field who would not be reviewing the case

as it pertains to trade, but with regard to

any technical factors. The group would

make a decision as to whether there was a basis for the claim that safety concerns were involved. Then, they would come up

with recommendations . If we, the United

States, were not satisfied, we could re- quest a panel—with a policy orientation.

We would allege the French practice to be

a violation of the code, and might cite the

report of the technical group. Ultimately,

after a 14-month period (there are very

specific deadlines in this process) , the

Committee could make a final recommendation,

including the recommendation that because

the French have nullified or impaired U.S.

rights under the code, they must either

change their procedures or suffer sanctions

that the United States would be authorized

to take to restore the reciprocal balance

of trade that existed before the French

took their action. For instance, they

didn't let us get into their certification

system; we might not let them get into ours—something that would equalize the

situation.

4
I have just described an international legal

instrument, representing an executive agreement between the President of the United

States and other countries. As authorized

under the Constitution, the President may

enter into executive agreements. An execu- tive agreement does not become a law of the

land of the United States. It, like the

Panama Canal Treaty, must either be ratified

by the Senate or—and now I get back to the

Trade Act of 1974—What the Trade Act said

was, "Go ahead, Mr. President, negotiate,

for when you come back, we, the Senate and

the Congress, will want to pass legislation

that will put what you negotiate into effect

in the United States." Theoretically, the

legislation and the international agreement

should be the same. Then there would be

consistency between domestic and international obligations. That is indeed the

process that went on last spring. We

brought back the standards code that was

initialed (i.e., put in concrete but not

finalized) in April 1979 and then we began

to negotiate with the Hill on what the

legislation would look like. The legislation is called "The Trade Agreements Act of

1979" (Public Law 96-39) . It is not the same as the standards code; these are two

different things. The basic difference is

that the legislation (1) approves the standards code (an amorphous legal term that no

one has defined—"approves the standards

code"—it does not make the standards code

U.S. law) , and (2) with regard to the standards code, the legislation lists the

obligations that the United States will

fulfill. In essence, the U.S. will fulfill

all the obligations. The legislation does

not give private persons any rights (at

least in the standards code part, Title IV

of the Trade Agreement Act of 1979) ; it

gives foreign adherents to the standards

code rights. Let me run through that. It

says that the United States shall do the

following things: With regard to Federal

agencies, we shall use appropriate international standards; we shall participate in

international standards bodies; we shall

base our standards on performance rather

than design; and we shall treat imported

products fairly. You are a domestic citizen,

and you, a citizen of Cleveland, Ohio, want

to complain about the government of Cleveland, Ohio: you don't have a right under

the standards code. It makes sense. We

negotiated standards code with the foreigners; we give foreigners rights under the

standards code. If you were a French citizen and you were having problems with a city

in Ohio, then you would go to your

government and your government would come to the U.S. Government for consultations.

Then the procedure that I just talked

about—the dispute settlement—takes place.

Title IV of the Trade Agreements Act

provides certain unique and badly needed

guidelines for Federal Government agencies

and for others (State governments and private persons) regarding standardization.

It not only includes the basis tenets of

the standards code as I've described them

and makes them law in the United States,

but also creates new offices and new responsibilities. The Office, of the U.S.

Trade Representative is responsible for

coordinating trade policy regarding the

trade aspects of standardization. That was never clear before, but now is. There are

two technical offices established under the

Trade Agreements Act, one in the Department

of Commerce and one in the Department of

Agriculture, to help information flow, to

provide information on standards and to

help exporters get their products accepted

in other countries. There is, of importance to the National Bureau of Standards,

an information center created to provide

information on all those ranges of things

that I talked about. And, important to

those gathered here, the United States is

to use appropriate international standards

and to participate in appropriate international standardization bodies. Recognized

in the bill, for the first time that I know

of in a piece of legislation, is the

difference between participation by the

United States Government in a treaty organization (the OIML, Alimentarius , NATO, etc.)

and participation of the United States in

private international standards bodies.

Participation in private international standards organizations (for instance the

International Electro-Technical Commission

(IEC) and the other bodies that

develop international standards by the

United States is carved out by private persons—member bodies—such as ANSI. This is

the first piece of legislation I think that

recognizes that (1) the U.S. is represented

by private domestic bodies, and (2) there

should be a mechanism established for those

instances where private bodies are not adequately representing the United States; a procedure for questioning U.S. representation, and requesting the member body to

either increase representation or, allow the

Department of Commerce to take on the re- sponsibility of representation using the

auspices of the private sector member,

5
because, for example ANSI is the only

recognized U.S. member to the ISO and the

IEC (as recognized by the ISO and the IEC)

.

The bill also provides funding for instance

in which we must help out and increase U.S.

representation; for domestic technical

assistance; and, for consultations with the

private sector in developing U.S. policy.

Finally, the last step in the implementation

of the standards code. The President has

issued a reorganization plan, Reorganization

Plan Number 3 of 1979, dealing with trade.

While all these talks were going on—the

MTN talks, and throughout the spring of

1979 when we were implementing the trade

agreements—the Congress kept saying we want

a Department of Trade. That would have had

a very big impact on the Department of

Commerce, certainly, the Department of

Treasury, State, and Agriculture, and on my

Office; People like Senator Ribicoff were

saying they wanted a Department of Trade so that the U.S. was actively promoting U.S.

trade interests. The compromise reached

gives my office as well as the Department

of Commerce increased responsibilities.

With regard to the standards code, my office

is responsible for policy guidance (that's a vague word) that arises as a result of

implementation of the standards code. This was a hard fought compromise; USTR can issue

policy guidance with regard to matters that

affect trade and commodities. Also, USTR

is responsible for U.S. participation in the

OEDB, UNCTAD, and the GATT—my office has

full resposibility for that, recognizing

that the Department of Commerce must provide

us with technical assistance (the backup

work—the main work that goes on) . In this

reorganization plan you have trade concen- trated in the USTR Office and the Department

of Commerce. That, as I understand it, went

into effect yesterday. We are no longer

called the "Special Trade Representative's

Office"; but, rather the "Office of the U.S.

Trade Representative." We're not special,

anymore, and we're not only involved in

negotiations

.

All of this is to go into effect January 1,

1980. By that point (in about 5 weeks) , the

United States is to have technical offices,

and an information center; we're going to be

functioning; we'll be able to handle com- plaints and disputes.

There could be a significant change from

how the U.S. participated in international

standards activites in the past and how we

will participate in the future, and in our use of international standards as well as in the whole process of standards development, because more and more and more we

will be looking towards what is happening

elsewhere to see whether standards are relevant for use in the U.S. If they are relevant and appropriate, we should be

using them.

6
NATO OBJECTIVES FOR STANDARDS HARMONIZATION

Mr. Donald Mitchell, Department of Defense

NATO ORGANIZATION

NATO is broadly divided into operational

(military) and engineering (civilian)

organizations. Standardization within the

military side comes under the Military

Agency for Standardization (MAS) . The MAS

is composed of three boards, an Army, Navy,

and Air Board. The Chairman of MAS has

little direct authority over the boards,

but performs administrative functions for

all of NATO regarding assignment of NATO

STANAG (Standardization Agreement) numbers,

and generally keeps track of what goes on.

On the "civilian" side, standardization

comes principally under a "Council of

National Armament Directors" (CNAD) . The

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and

Engineering (currently Dr. Perry) is the

National Armaments Director for the U.S.

Under the CNAD, standardization is carried

out by Army/Navy/Air Force armaments groups

and "cadre" groups on various generic subjects such as quality, and cataloging.

These cadre groups include one on which I serve as U.S. representative — a group,

designated AC/301, on standardization of

Assemblies, Components, Spare Parts and

Materials (ACSM) .

STANDARDIZATION HURDLES

Definitions - Within an organization as

large as NATO and having a diverse membership, problems of definition are

exacerbated. Nuances of meaning in terms

such as harmonization, rationalization^

normalization, standardization, simplification, interchangeable, interoperability^

identity, compatibility, make communication

difficult in the standardization arena.

Orientation - Historically the word

standardization is used within NATO in a much broader sense than usual. It relates

to standardization of operational procedures

such as military tactics and doctrine as well as to complete weapon systems. As a

result, the organizational superstructure

has developed and is oriented in a manner

quite different from that which we think of

as standardization within the U.S. This

superstructure, in the opinion of many, can

act to inhibit good performance in standardization of products and engineering

practices

Organization - The diversity of "standardization" activity within NATO makes

coordination and visibility between groups

very difficult. This is compounded by the

fact that NATO is a "supernational" organization in which participation is voluntary

and use of standards is not binding except

as a participating nation desires to make

it mandatory on himself. This can make

effective standardization relatively

difficult.

THE AC/301 (ACSM) GROUP

Based on a U.S. recommendation developed in

coordination with the U.K., the AC/301

Group was formed in 1977. The concept

underlying the group is "bottom-up" rather

than "top-down" standardization which has

been traditional. In other words, standardizing parts used among many kinds of

weapons has real advantage compared with

the difficult job of standardization of

specific end items, although end item

standardization carries with it automatic

standardization of components used on those

end items. So far, AC/301 has:

1. Authorized new series of NATO standards

called AStanPs, for ACSM items and en- gineering practices.

2. Agreed to adopt International (e.g., ISO

and IEC) , National, or Military standards

in that order of preference, when possible

in favor of developing new standards.

3. Initiated major planning studies for:

Mechanical items (U.S. task)

Electrical/Electronic (U.K. task)

Materials (French task)

Chemicals (German task)

4. Formed or is forming subgroups in each

of these areas to develop standards.

5. Published standards adopting ISO 1000

(AStanP 1) and giving visibility to various

drawing practices (AStanP 2) , and is nearing

completion of a Configuration Management

Standard

FUTURE ACTIVITY

It is hoped that AC/301 activity will lead

to major standardization of ACSM items

within NATO by publishing perhaps several

thousand standards as compared with the

present population of approximately 300 in

the material area. Activity is presently

under way which will consider establishing

a permanent office in NATO to help with

this task.

CAPABILITIES PRESENTATION - INFORMATION

SERVICES FOR EXPORTERS (A slide presentation)

Mr. Rudy Rutelionis, International Marketing

Information Handling Services

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My

name is Rudy Rutelionis and I represent a company by the name of Information Handling

Services, located in Denver, Colorado, USA.

I would like to start this meeting by

thanking all of you for attending, and for

taking the time to be present at this

Symposium and demonstration. In order to

give you an understanding as to why

Information Handling Services was created

in 1959 and why it is the world's leader

in ndcropublishing and information systems, we must look at the technical data explosion that is surrounding all of us. If one takes all of the technical information

that was created in the history of the

world up to 1950... it doubled by 1965. A

mere 15 years! By 1975 it had doubled

again, and will be doubling again every

seven years !

!

Information Handling Services was created

to organize this wealth of information, and

we've been doing this for approximately

20 years. At the present time we have some of the most extensive and sophisticated

information libraries in the world. We

started by providing specialized, data

systems for the aerospace-aeroframe industries. Our success allowed us to branch

off into the marine engineering field,

into the architectural construction field,

and into the plant engineering petrochemical field. Our services are now purchased

by over 5,000 companies, many international

in scope.

One service available is VSMF or Visual

Search Microfilm Files sometimes known as vendor specs microfilm files. Another is

the U.S. Companies Exporters and Suppliers

Services - a comprehensive collection of

over 17,000 current manufacturer and distributor catalogs. This represents over 10

million products made or sold in the U.S.

covering almost every type of item made.

In addition to the products information,

Information Handling Services also has

available over 90 per cent of the world's

commercial and industrial standards and

codes. For example, we are the prime

distributor of the standards codes in

microfilm for IEC, ISO, BSI, JIS and DIN

(Deutsches Institute fur Normung E.V. )

.

Currently, we are looking at distributing

several others.

All of the VSMF services dealing with

commercial industrial standards, regardless of whether they are domestic or

international, are updated on a 60-day

basis, and are indexed so that an individual can reference the document by number

and also find the document title and its

latest revision date. We have a unique

index, which we refer to as the VSMF

Commercial Industrial Standards Locator

Index, which is an optional index that

allows an individual to search all standards by subject category. For example,

if I wanted to know if there are any com- mercial or industrial standards that deal

with, say, a water tight connector, all I need do is go into one cartridge and very

quickly it will tell what standards, if

any, have been written about the item.

This type of search capability is very,

very cost effective and can save a great

deal of time for that organization or that

individual who needs to know what standards

and specifications are pertinent to a particular subject area.

This next slide depicts the broad capabilities of the VSMF services. Through the

different modular capabilities or sectionalization of the various VSMF services, and

the fact that they cover many different

disciplines, it is quite possible that

virtually all the technical data requirements of the different departments or organizations within a large organization

or company can be met.

9
In summary, the Visual Search Microfilm

Files - VSMF - is a series of technical

information retrieval systems containing more than 6 million pages of product specifications, industry standards and codes,

test procedures, federal and military specifications and regulations. The data is

organized into 106 sub-files which can be

configured to meet the needs of a small

team of specialists or departments or an

entire company's requirements. Each VSMF

system comes with a computer generated

index and each is updated and reindexed

regularly, some as frequently as every 15

days.

Now I'd like to show you a typical data

search. As you can see, this is an individual who needs information. He may need

military specifications; he may need vendor

catalog data; he may even need the latest

commercial industrial standards. In any

case, he needs to reference data. Often,

he first checks a vendor catalog library

that looks like this. But more than likely

like this. In any case, he has to start

finding the information because he has a

requirement to do so. These might be all

the catalogs that he has found that pertain

to that particular product, or they also

might represent the updates that have yet to

be placed into the catalogs that are on his

shelf. But as invariably happens, frustration sets in.

What you're looking at on this screen is the

IHS alternative to this time-consuming and

often frustrating hard copy data search.

It represents one of the most advanced

technical information retrieval systems

available. In the event that this same engineer had the VSMF information systems

available to him all he would have to do is

go to the data station as pictured up on the

screen, reference the information, select a

cartridge, and insert it into a viewer.

At this point he can either view the information or extract it directly off the film.

Receiving a high resolution dry copy in a

matter of seconds. The entire search for

the latest information takes from 5 to 6

minutes as opposed to a hard-copy catalog

product search of 45 to 50 minutes. Our

first step in creating the systems we've

seen is to go out and acquire the technical

information. Once the information is

received, coding engineers (approximate 30)

review it to make sure it fits the programs

and systems that we have. Then the information is indexed for storage in a computer

and for use in the information systems.

Ultimately, the final user will have ready

access to the data and be able to retrieve

it in a timely manner.

As you can see from this slide, Information

Handling Services utilizes some of the most

sophisticated computer equipment available

to create the systems, and to merge the two

technologies, microfilm and computer, for

the indexing and sorting of information.

Once the information has been coded, indexed

and entered in the computer, it is then

filmed. We utilize different types of .cysttsas and programs. Once the film has been

.

created, it is duplicated, and loaded into

cartridges. This represents one of the

finished products.

And these are several of the microfilms that we create. For example, in the upper left

hand corner is the cartridge, in the upper

right hand corner there is a satellite

cassette type cartridge for film, and in

the lower position is microfiche. In

addition to these formats, we also publish

in paper, in ultrafiche and any other type

of media that we feel is the cost effective

way to disseminate the data. As mentioned

earlier, what we've done is merged two

technologies, computer and microfilm, into

what is called micropublishing. The com- puter does the indexing, and the sorting for

us; the microfilm represents the dissemination of the data and the storage of the

data. Although Information Handling Services processes over 45000 kilometers a

year, we do not consider ourselves microfilm

people. What we do consider ourselves to

be is an information company. If there were

to be developed tomorrow a better method, a more economical method, a quicker turnaround

type method of disseminating the data that we are working with , we would use it immediately. We are not locked into microfilm

in any way, although I'm sure it will always

be an ongoing method of data dissemination.

But we look at ourselves as being on the

threshold of new, more fascinating and

interesting ways of disseminating technical

information to our users. Thank you.

10
PROVIDING INFORMATION SERVICES TO EXPORTERS

Mr. Brian Roden, British Standards Institute

Selling a product overseas demands the

successful coordination and solution of

many problems if it is to be profitable - analysis of the market and of the competition, decision on the advertising budget

linked with the desired penetration of the

market choice of an agent, and by no means

least investigation of the technical re- quirements demanded by the target country

and the customer.

Technical requirements are often overlooked,

since many orders are placed by foreign

customers who assume that the manufacturer

will conform to the technical requirements

of his country, even when there is no specific statement in the contract. Another

cause of problem is the lack of liaison (or

is it education?) between sales and production teams. When the export salesman has no knowledge of local standards and regulations, he may be signing up an order that

his production manager may not be able to

meet.

THE GENERAL PROBLEMS - There are thus

general problems around the world caused by

technical requirements which all exporters

will meet:

1. The laws of the land - safety and

health of workers

is the current

fashion and one which is likely

to last longer

than most; consumer protection

is also high on many countries'

lists; environmental protection

makes the headlines less often now in many parts

of the world, although in the USA

and Japan it is

still fairly high

up the list.

2. National standards and - there are about

codes of practice h miilion in the

world and most

are different

engineering histories and

philosophies

,

climate conditions, customs

and idealogies,

and sometimes

deliberate differences to keep

out the competition.

3. Certification and - usually demandapproval ing testing and

inspection in

each country.

4. Customer requirements - surprisingly

often overlooked.

THE SOLUTION - Having recognized the

problems, a company has two main choices in

finding solutions:

1. Self-help - allocation of a man or men to

the task of digging out the

information and

applying it to

company's products .

2. T-H-E - the use of a

specialist,

consultant organization, to

do at least the

preliminary work.

T-H-E can be thought of as operating at 3

levels

Identification . Of regulations, national

standards, other (e.g. trade association)

standards, etc.

11
Supply . A list of documents is a beginning

but the next stage is to have the documents

- and to have them in a language the company

can work in. The latter had led on to the

development of an extensive translation

service.

Interpretation . Having got the documents,

what do they mean? The transfer of

information from paper to metal via the

brain. Here THE engineers have both a

number of years experience as well as answering a large number of similar

questions. Also, they travel to discuss

with the foreign, approval and inspection

organizations, and to organize conferences

where speakers from these organizations come

to elaborate on these documents.

SERVICES AVAILABLE TO COMPANIES IN THE USA

These are outlined in the leaflet "Technical

Help to Exporters" and operated in the USA

through the National Technical Information

Service

.

Further information is always available

from David Grooms at NTIS or myself at

T-H-E. For the price of a letter, telex or phone call, why not find out whether you

have a problem and how much it will cost

you for us to solve it?

12
TO PROMOTE INTERNATIONAL TIRADE BY PROVIDING

RAPID ACCESS TO RELIABLE INPORMATION

Mr. Jerry Lieblich, Global Engineering

Documentation Services, Inc.

It is indeed an honor to be standing here

with such an illustrious group of people

concerned with the preparation and

dissemination of specifications and

standards. To be chosen by NBS to serve on a panel of this stature is like being

chosen by the greatest one of all and told

to report to heaven.

Quoting from the announcement that each of

you received which tempted you to leave

your offices and attend this symposium,

are the words "to promote international

trade by providing rapid access to reliable

information. " Except for the word international, those words gave birth to Global

Engineering Documentation Services, Inc.

However, the word "international" has crept

into our business more and more each year.

Let's review for a moment who is Global and

why I am here. Going back to the year 1962,

I was with Aerojet-General in Azusa,

California which was well entrenched in

government contracts with almost every

branch of the armed services, the space program and assorted amounts of commercial

products (all of which relied heavily on

specifications and standards, both government and industry) . It therefore, is

understandable that Aerojet had the largest

and best Specifications and Standards

Library on the West Coast. In fact, better

than that, it was all in one place and not

scattered among the many sources that the

documents came from. I was fortunate

enough to serve as the Chief Specifications

and Standards Engineer for the corporation

and responsible for seeing to it that the

library had what was needed when it was

needed as well as promoting the use of

published specifications and standards

within the corporation.

The pursuing years found the aerospace

business in decline and the library found

itself with a need for a huge budget to

keep it current and personnel to run it.

And as all companies must do, when overhead

gets too heavy, cuts had to be made. A

study was conducted by myself which led to

the discovery that only 10 per cent of the

library was used at any one time and the

other 90 per cent lay there waiting for a

new bid or contract to use it. Thus the

cost of keeping the 90 per cent current was too much to support during a declining

market.

My recommendation was that Aerojet dispose

of the maintenance of the library by

setting up a separate company to maintain

the library, and then charge to overhead

the 10 per cent information Aerojet needed,

and make available publicly for sale the same services to support the remaining

90 per cent of the cost of running the

library. Another alternative to the

problem would be to sell the total library

to a commercial company and buy back the

material on an "as needed basis" without

the cost of keeping it current.

My recormendation went over like a lead

balloon and along with many other engineers

at the time, I left Aerojet for other

endeavors. About three years later Aerojet

contacted me after reviewing my proposal

again and wanted advice on how to go

about it.

It was then I felt that I would like to

take on the project; I proceeded to find

a backer in Newport Beacn, California to

purchase the Specifications and Standards

Library from Aerojet and to follow the

formula of selling back the information

to Aerojet, and to anyone else we could

interest in the service. I became

President and General Manager of operations.

The next few years were spent trying to

prove it was cheaper and more efficient to

pay for copies of specifications and

standards delivered the next day than to get

them free frcm the government two to six

weeks later.

The library was 95 per cent Aerospace

oriented at the beginning, and over the

years sales now stand at 30 per cent Aerospace and 70 per cent industry specifications and standards. All of which proves

it takes just as long to get industry

specifications as it does to get government ones.

13
The general concept has several proven

advantages which I shall briefly list.

1. The cost of a specification or standard

is small compared to the time lost in

the preparation of "request for

quote", or the compliance with a published specification or standard. A

$5 specification delivered the next day

is compared to a free specification

delivered 2 to 4 weeks later after

the bid has passed. The hourly rate of

pay plus overhead for an engineer over

a period of 80 to 160 hours without the

information needed could exceed over

$2,000 of wasted time.

2. Documents from over 2,000 sources are located under one roof thus the need

for ten documents coming from ten

different sources requires ten purchase

orders, ten checks, and ten delivery

dates. One order, one check, and

normally one delivery (24 hours later)

accomplishes the whole thing. Also, the

larger the company, the cost of cutting

a purchase order and a check often

exceeds $35 each and often two to three

times the cost of the specification or

standard being purchased.

3. The availability of a research department to seek out those ambiguous

initials that are difficult to identify

and locate their source.

4. The opportunity to avail yourself of a computerized update service to stay

current.

5. Specification Tree Service provides all

applicable documents to any tier with

only one request. To illustrate, use

DOD-D-1000 which is the Grandaddy on what is required to prepare an

engineering drawing for a government

military contract. This tier one specification lists applicable documents

which are needed in support of DOD-D-1000

and are recognized as tier two.

In turn these tier two documents list

their applicable documents and are recognized as tier three and so on. Would you believe that DOD-D-1000 to the

seventh tier will call for 84,000

applicable support documents of which

25,000 are in duplication of callouts.

If you were to go the normal route,

through normal channels of ordering

from the source, it would take 2 to 6

weeks to get tier one DOD-D-1000, 2 to

6 weeks to get the documents from tier

two, and so on. In short, it could

take you 6 months to a year to

assemble the information needed to bid

on a contract for which you have 3 to

4 weeks to respond.

So far I've told you who we are and what we

do, which establishes the base for how we,

as a commercial company, promote the use of

specifications and standards both national

and international. To begin with, Global was established by engineers and not

librarians. As engineers with more than

20 years experience in the design proposal

area of a company, we were well aware of

the problems and delay in getting the

information required during the "request

of bid" cycle and later the building

delivery cycles that followed.

The general feeling by most people in

engineering when they were approached by

myself to finance the Global concept was

"Who would pay for specifications and

standards from the government that were

free for the asking and pay as much as double the price for industry documents

that were generally copyrighted with no reproduction privileges." No one did come forward so it was a commercial building

company that was looking to diversify that

finally took the gamble to start Global.

On July 5, 1968, the Aerojet library thus

became the beginning of Global and the years

that followed were spent convincing industry

to buy what was free and pay a premium for

other material . When the • library started

it was 95 per cent government and the

balance industry.

14
In 1974 I became President and my wife Vice

President; we acquired Global and changed

directions. Today it is 30 per cent

government and 70 per cent industry.

Over half of the inquiries to Global (either

by phone or mail) are requesting help in

assisting them on what they need to perform

in the design, manufacture, or shipment

of their products.

They are asking if such a specification

or standard already exists to perform a

situation before they take off on their own

to create their own internal design or

company specification or standard.

Recently we received a request from NBS for

all the specifications we could find on the

rotating (bubble gum) light used on

emergency vehicles. After researching cur files we came up with about 12 inches

thick of documents from both government and

industry sources ranging from police

vehicles to off-road farm tractors, which

used such equipment. I asked the requestor

why he came to Global when almost all

these documents were located within his own

files across town at GPO or within the

industry association located on the East

Coast. His answer was "From you I can get

them overnight, from the source it will

take 6 weeks."

As more and more equipment is being exported or imported and must comply to the

specifications and standards of the using

country, the problem of getting copies of

foreign specifications and standards and the

U.S. specifications and standards overseas

has more than doubled the time of getting

the documents when needed. VJe have

established agents in the key countries in

which the need for one another's documents

exist. We use telex communication between

each of our facilities to expedite price

and availability. Due to the time

differential we are shipping 8 to 12 hours

prior to the order being received and of course the reverse is true or a loss of a single day is encountered when material is

shipped to us. Again our telex is filled

with research-type questions to determine

what is needed prior to the actual order.

Four months ago we installed our second

computer replacing an earlier, smaller one used for accounting purposes. The new one will take over a year to load the over

one-half million titles, numbers, revision

status, customer update services, and price

information which will give us rapid access to the information needed for inquiries.

In addition we will be able to generate a

master index similar to the Department of

Defense Index of Specifications and

Standards (DODISS) with the added material

from Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, GPO,

FAA, etc. , and the major copyrighted

industry documents together with the price

and availability from Global. I envision

this index will be three to four volumes,

3 inches thick, for each the numerical

and alphabetical versions. It will

represent the most common or most popular

documents from each source and be inaintained by Global as a stock item.

Our computer capability will parallel the

already popular on-line data bank systems

such as Lockheed's dialogue and SFC's Orbit.

The prime difference is when the information

you are seeking becomes known, the buck

doesn't stop there, or the search for the

document source and its delivery begins.

With our system, when the information is

known, it is shipped the same day.

While it is true we can't be everything to

everyone requesting our help and delivery

of the documents requested, we still are able to achieve better than 90 per cent

response and the material is deliverable

the same day the search for it began.

Interesting enough our research department

has had some exciting projects, one of

which was rather unique in the way it came

about. Rockwell International Space

Division in Downey, California was in the

design stages of the Space Shuttle program.

They were in the process of reviewing and

evaluating the specifications and standards

required by NASA. I was called in to

determine the availability and cost of

obtaining the documents expediently for

their response. I noticed that construction was needed for a men's room partition on

the base and cited a NASA specification

which would apply to a space vehicle. I made the comment that the Florida State

Building Code could accomplish that at

considerably less cost. I was awarded a contract to review all other specifications

and to select the specification to fit the

application. A prime example is that there

are approximately 65 clean room specifications from a broom swept floor to an ultra clean vacuum atmosphere and all

necessary to match the proper allocation.

This action did much to reduce the often

made accusation of NASA for gold plating

15
everything. It helped to achieve the

distinction of selecting the proper specification to fit the application.

It took Aerojet-General 26 years to assemble the basic government library and Global

another 10 years to assemble the technical

and trade societies under one roof. The

government is making it exceedingly more

difficult to keep our files current with

the addition of more rules and regulations

for obtaining new and revised specifications

and standards. The Freedom of Information

Act helped for awhile but little by little,

bureaucracy has taken hold to slow down the

already bogged down methods of getting an acknowledgement when a simple inquiry is

made for the availability of a document

needed for a request for bid.

It is no wonder that more and more

qualified manufacturers each year drop

out of the ranks of government bidders.

If the government sources either won't or

can't fill the needs of qualified manufacturer's need for published government

specifications and standards, then they

should relinquish their hold on this

valuable information to qualified commercial

firms to do the job. The U.S. Post Office

has permitted commercial firms such as United Parcel Service (UPS) to move package

mail and is now considering permitting

letter mail to be delivered by commercial

firms other than the post office. Then

why not allow qualified firms to be

permitted to buy available unclassified

specifications and standards from government

agencies. These same specifications and

standards should be made available to those

vendors of information such as Global when

requested and at a price reasonable to

recover expenses. These same information

vendors can then competitively provide

these documents to the information hungry

manufacturers both here and abroad to

provide better and more realistic quotes to

the same organizations that make it so difficult to respond to their own "request

for quote.

And that Ladies and Gentlemen is how I would, "promote international trade by

providing rapid access to reliable

information.

16
STANDARDS AND TECHNICAL REGULATIONS - THE

INTERNATIONAL SOLUTION

Mr. E. J. French, International Organization

for Standardization, Secretary for INFCO*

1. A Few Words About ISO - ISO (the

International Organisation for Standardization) is the specialized international

agency for standardization. The membership

of ISO comprises the national standards

bodies of 86 countries with one member per

country. The ISO member body for the

United States of America is ANSI, co-sponsor

with the NBS of the present symposium.

ISO publishes International Standards

designed to facilitate the international

exchange of goods and services and to aid

other forms of human activity. An example

is the standardization of test methods so that results obtained in different laboratories, or in different countries, are

comparable. Other types of International

Standards deal with safety, environmental

protection, information transfer and many

other subjects on international interest.

There is a growing demand for international

product standards from members of ISO and a

stronger effort in this direction is likely

in the future. Each ISO standard is the

result of cooperation between groups and

experts drawn trom many countries. It re- presents an international agreement between

the ISO member bodies. On an average two

such agreements are reached each working

day.

The organizational structure of ISO,

including lists of the ISO member bodies

and the 157 technical committees are described elsewhere. 1 The full list of ISO

is published in the ISO Catalogue2 which is

updated by quarterly catalogue supplements

All ISO publications are available in the

USA from ANSI.

Although the main stream of ISO activity is

directed trv'ards the formulation and publication of International Standards there are

*The ISO Standing Committee for the study of

scientific and technical information on

standardization.

also a number of other very important

activities designed to ensure that the

standards are known and used. ISO and its

member bodies realize that a standard is

useless unless it is implemented and for it

to be implemented people must know about

it. Hence we have a need for international

information systems. Also, to be useful a

standard must be respected. The public

must come to realize that goods or services

which conform to a standard are reliable

and that is why many countries have introduced certification systems under which a product may be certified as cx>rrforming to a particular standard or set of standards by

the award of a standards mark by the na- tional standards body. Permission to use a standards mark is normally subject to

periodic inspection of the product concerned, and may be withdrawn if the product

fails to reach the standard. The USA does

not have a national certification system

although there are of course many governmental, engineering society, trade

association, independent testing laboratory,,

independent foundation and company certification programmes. (The National Bureau of

Standards has information on many such

schemes.) It is important nevertheless for

the American exporter or importer to know

about national certification in other countries and ISO has collected together

information about the standards marks used

in 45 countries, the associated testing and

inspection conditions, and the penalties

which apply in case of abuse. The publication includes information also on four

transnational marks.

Other activities of ISO are directed towards

the protection of consumers, assistance to

developing countries, questions concerning

reference materials and of course the study

of the principles of standardization. Any

national member body of ISO is entitled to

take part in any or all of these activities

and ANSI in fact takes part in all of them.

Any ISO member body may take part in the

work of anv or all of the many International Standards and ANSI participates

actively in nearly all of this work. Any

organization can encourage and influence

national and international standardization

by supporting its national standards body

17
and taking part in its activities. It is

important for your voice to be heard in ISO

since national standards in many countries

are more and more coming to be based upon

International Standards. Hence your interests as a nation, as organizations or

individuals within a country or perhaps as multi-national organizations or companies

are very much involved.

But for all this the key is information,

and the main purpose of this paper is to

show you what ISO is trying to do to ensure

that everyone has the information he needs

about standards and similar documents.

But first a few more words on who needs

information and why.

2. Who needs information about standards

and why? - First of all, anyone con- cerned with the writing of standards or

regulations needs information. He needs to

know whether the subject or a similar subject has already been studied elsewhere.

This will help him to avoid contradictions

and repetitions and will also save time and

money at the drafting stage. This consideration applies to all the 400 or so standards-writing bodies active in the USA.

A standards body also needs to provide

information to others if it wishes to sell

its standards or to ensure they are applied.

An efficient information service is of

great benefit to the reputation of a standards body and can be a significant factor

in securing increasing support for its

activities

.

Then government departments, as important

purchasers, sponsors of projects of various

types and in the course of their specialized

duties, have a need for information on standards very similar to that of any large

organization. However, governments have

national and international responsibilities

which create a special need to know about

standards and related documents. First

there is the principle of reference to standards which can simplify and accelerate

legislative work. So that advantage may be

taken in this way of existing and future

standards, it is important for governments

to be mac'e and kept aware of relevant standards and work in progress. The principle

of reference to standards is also available

to intergovernmental organizations and as far as ISO and IEC standards are concerned

it is described in a joint document'*

issued by these two organizations. Governmental recognition of this "need to know"

is apparent from moves within a number of

international organizations, notably the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

(GAIT) and the United Nations Economic

Commission for Europe (ECE) , to establish

in each country a focal point for information about standards technical regulations.

A national standards organization would

appear to be the natural place to locate

such a focal point in most cases.

Industry, especially exporting industry,

needs to know about standards and technical

regulations affecting the acceptability of

products and services in various markets

and their delivery to the markets. If a national standards information centre is to

respond to these important requirements it

must extend its range to include International Standards, codes and agreements,

technical regulations and similar documents

operating in foreign countries. For this

purpose special information services have

been set up by some ISO member bodies, such

as the NOREX system in France, the Technical Help to Exporters (THE) service in

Britian and a number of privately operated

services in the USA. Other speakers are concerned with the details of such services,

but consider the possible effects if every

country tried to set up a national service

of this type on its own. The proliferation

of such services, each gathering its own

information from every source, would result

in an increasing reluctance on the part of

the sources to provide the information,

because of the duplication of work involved

for them (and of course for all concerned)

.

The alternative is the concept of ISONET

which will be presented later in more detail.

Information services themselves need regular

and up-to-date information about standards.

It is important for a standards-writing

body to ensure that its standards are included with the other literature in the

many general and specialized, national and

international information systems. They

provide an invaluable conmunication link

with the potential user.

18
3. What is ISO doing about it? - The

irtportance of ensuring the universal availability of information about standards has

long been realized by ISO. In 1969 ISO

Council decided, to form a "Standards

Committee for the study of scientific and

technical information on standardization"

,

to be known as INFCO and reporting directly

to Council. The present Chairman of INFCO,

Mr. Edward Kierski, is one of your speakers

here today. The terms of reference of INFCO are at present defined in the following way:

"To assist the development of the

information centres on standardization of the ISO Central Secretariat

and the ISO Member Bodies and of the

links between them and so to establish an ISO information network:

- by recommending common systems for

classifying and indexing standards

and related information and for

processing the information,

- by encouraging the use of International Standards in the working

of individual information centres

and of the network as a whole,

- by stimulating the exchange of

knowledge and experience between

the centres and encouraging the

training of information personnel.

" To appraise the programme of the

ISO Information Centre

' To foster profitable relationships

with other international information networks

To advise council on these and

other matters related to the

compilation, storage, retrieval,

application and dissemination of

scientific and technical information on standardization."

The eleventh meeting of INFCO was held in

Geneva on 11th and 12th September 1979

and the standards bodies of 30 countries were represented. ANSI was most competently represented by Dr. Lawrence a Eicher

and Mr. Charles B. Phucas, both speakers

in the present symposium. At that meeting

INFCO agreed upon a Constitution for ISONET

and upon the conditions for the three types

of membership, about which more will be

said later.

The conditions were all approved or endorsed

by ISO Council which met the next day.

Since the Constitution provides for INFCO

to become the General Assembly of ISONET

some revision of these terms or reference

may now be necessary and this is being

studied.

4. What is ISONET? - In almost every

country there is a national standards

organization, as represented by the ISO

member body. Every one of these organizations is called upon to provide information

about the standards of its own country and more frequently about foreign and international standards. Hence the organization

is forced to support some sort of information activity to meet this demand and to

cooperate in the exchange of information

with similar organizations in other countries. At present information is exchanged

between centres mainly by the physical ex- change of documents. ISO member bodies

send each other copies of the standards

they publish, of standards catalogues and

other useful reference materials; the ISO

Information Centre is included in this ex- change scheme and so, of course is ANSI.

Hence ISONET already has much to offer, with

a chain of national standards information

centres already existing across the World

to serve national needs and the ISO Information Centre in Geneva to serve the needs

of the international organizations. In

principle, each of these centres has a collection of national, international and

foreign standards available for consultation or purchase. In the USA you are

particularly fortunate in the close co- operation which exists between your many

standards-writing bodies and ANSI and of course between ANSI and the NBS as evidenced by the present symposium. This

cooperation ensures that information is

readily available to you about both American and foreign standards and should go a

19
long way towards guaranteeing the future of

ISONET as far as American participation is

concerned. It must be admitted, however,

that national standards information centres

vary enormously in efficiency, capabilities

and resources. Cooperative efforts within

INFCO are designed to help to raise the

general level. There are other disadvantages; the exchange of actual documents on

a routine basis is expensive, especially

with rising postal charges, and it can be

wasteful. Also the collections in most

centres are confined to standards published

by national standards organizations, although several bodies have extended their

collections to include other types of technical regulations. Although there is much

to offer even now, there is considerable room for improvement. ISONET is designed

to develop the existing network so as to

provide improved services, eliminating

waste and duplication of effort wherever

possible.

The basic idea behind ISONET is that each

national member shall accept the responsibility for providing information about

standardizing activities in its own country.

Each should aim to become the focal point

for information about all kinds of technical requirements operative in the country

concerned. You have heard from another

speaker about the GATT Standards Code and

U.S. plans for its implementation; clearly

ISONET and GATT are moving in the same

direction. In some countries the GATT

focal point will be the ISONET national

member, in others it may be located elsewhere, but it is to everyone's advantage if

they can work very closely together in harmony and certainly not as rivals. Any idea

of establishing a monopoly in information

about standardizing documents would be contrary to the spirit of ISONET.

5. Who are the members of ISONET? - There are three classes of ISONET member. There

is first of all the national member of

ISONET wliich is either the ISO member in the

country concerned or a body appointed by the

ISO member. A national member if it so wishes may be aided by associate members

which act under the sponsorship of the national member. The national member in any

country is responsible for determining the

privileges and responsibilities of any

associate members which it may wish to

appoint.

The third type of member is the international affiliate, defined as any

international organization which has joined

ISONET by invitation of the Secretary

General of ISO.

At present there are no associate or international affiliates, but national members

of ISONET for 35 countries have already

been appointed. To take account of the

wide differences between the standards

bodies in different countries, INFCO has

defined three types of national member and

each country . is free to decide for itself

whether it wishes to operate as a type 1,

2 or type 3 member. The conditions for

participation in ISONET as a national mem- ber are given in the appendix.

6. Exchanges between members of ISONET - From these conditions it will be seen that

the ISONET concept goes even beyond the re- quirements of the GATT standards code.

When ISONET is functioning fully each coun- try will have an enquiry point capable of

providing information about standards and

technical regulations operating anywhere in

the world. The members of ISONET agree to

help each other by exchanging the information necessary to achieve this end.

At first the information is likely to be

exchanged in the form of documents, as at

present, and by letter of telex in response

to specific enquiries, but technical working groups within INFCO have prepared an ISONET Indexing Manual and an ISONET

Thesaurus designed to aid the exchange of

information in machine readable form between centres. Already some centres are operating experimental exchanges of this

type on a bilateral basis.

Hence, in the future, it will be possible

for any centre to establish a selective

data bank as a basis for the information

services it wishes to offer. The Thesaurus

and Manual are designed as tools for information exchange between centres, regardless

of language, but might also become the

basis for on-line services to be offered

nationally.

7. Conclusion - In conclusion I should

like to quote the objectives of ISONET, as stated in its Constitution:

20
"The objectives of ISONET shall be:

- to promote closer cooperation among its

members on questions of information

- to aid the transfer of technology for

development

- to reduce technical barriers of technology for development

- to reduce technical barriers to trade

- to encourage coordination on standardization and implementation of

standards

by promoting the flew of information on

standards, technical specifications and related matters"

Hence anything which encourages the flow of

information on standards is acceptable to

ISONET but any measures which tend to re- strict information are contrary to the

spirit of ISONET - and we believe contrary

to the best interests of all of us.

We hope that all present here today will

return home resolved to give ANSI and the

NBS the maximum possible support and en- couragement so that the USA may play a

leading role in this ambitious and important project.

1 ISO Manento 1979, ISO Geneva

2 ISO Catalogue 1979, ISO Geneva

3 Standards J! larks, ISO Geneva, 1976

4 ISO/IEC Code of Principles on Reference

to Standards, ISO Geneva

21

STANDARDS AND TECHNICAL REGULATIONS - THE

INFORMATION PROBLEM

Mr. Edward Kierski, General Secretary of

Pols.ki Komitet Norraalizacji i Miar,

Chair of INFCO*

Over 4,000 ISO standards, 1,000 IEC

recommendations, 6,000 COMECON standards

and reconmendations and about 5,000 other

standards and regulations, established by

70 different international organizations, over 200,000 national standards and just as many various national and governmental

technical regulations together constitute

an up-to-date picture of the quantitative

achievement of world standardization . Of

course one should add to this many plant

standards beyond any formal registration

and control.

Eli Whitney, the father of standardization,

and Henry Ford, its greatest precursor,

would never have expected such an explosion

of their ideas. However, what they really

hoped and promised to the world and what

was in fact realized, were the benefits

which standardization offers to the national

and international economy, to each producer

and consumer as well.

The world wide transfer of technology, the

improvement of the quality of goods, effective protection of the environment and of

course, the more rational use of materials

and energy - these are some undeniable advantages of contemporary standardization.

Thus it is evident that the development of

international trade and technical cooperation demands a corresponding increase in

the quantity and quality of information

services, especially those concerning national, foreign and international standards

and technical specifications. Domestic

producers and trade enterprises need more

than their own national standards and technical regulations when promoting the export

of goods or technologies. They usually

demand prompt, complete and often sophisticated information. Besides this, standards

technical committees are indispensable

for their everyday work of establishing new standards. These problems are getting more important everyday, because of the

continual increase in international relations in all fields of human activity.

Let us recall the three fundamental problems

today affecting world economy:

the first is the need for rational use of

materials and energy when we

stand face to face with the difficulties caused by diminishing

resources on the one side and the

growth of human needs on the

other;

the second is the development of quality of

goods to correspond better to the

increasing requirements of con- sumers ;

and the third is the protection of the hu- man and natural environment

against the menace of industrialization and technical

progress

.

Those problems have a simultaneous impact and

national and international standardization

should be used as much as possible for

their solution.

- It is obvious that standards should be based

upon the highest level of scientific and

practical achievement. Such standards, besides their practical value for the national

economy, may play the role of an engine

pushing forward world economy, as a whole,

and especially the economy of developing

countries. They should also accelerate

international trade and cooperation in

various fields.

Here are some figures to emphasize their

importance for the export and import of

croods. According to statistics world

exports which in 1938 reached a level of

21 million dollars, grew rapidly after the

second World War to 120 million dollars in

1960 and then to .1, 122 million dollars in

1977.

*the ISO Standing committee for the study

of scientific and technical information on

standardization

23
In the USA export grew from a value of about

$.20 million in 1960 to $119 million in 1977.

Besides this some essential changes of the

pattern of export and import have occurred

in the USA during the last 10 years; the

export of machinery has increased from

34 per cent to 43 per cent of the total,

and in the same period the export of raw

materials has decreased from 15 per cent to

10 per cent. The import of raw materials

decreased 21 per cent to 6 per cent and the

import of food stuffs from 22 per cent to

9.8 per cent of the total imports of the

USA.

The USA share of total world exports is

10 per cent and of imports 13 per cent.

The significant increase of international

trade relations and the changes in the

structure of export and import are to be

noticed everywhere. This movement is

simultaneously accompanied by various non- trade international relations and

agreements, among others also in the field

of standardization.

Today it is unquestioned that effective

technical cooperation or the exchange of

goods can be achieved only when the na- tional or governmental rules are fully

respected by the partners. Any deviation

from existing technical regulations may

automatically cause economic or technical

failures. This is of especially great

importance in the export or import of goods

which are under the protection and control

of the state, like foodstuffs, electrotechnical equipment, etc.

This is the reason why in the last few

years manufacturers and trading companies

have been demanding, on such a large scale,

technical information, especially on standards and other standardizing agreements.

Surveys by several standards information

centres conclude that the demands for information concern - besides their own national

standards and technical regulations - Internationa]. Standards and the standards

and technical specifications of the most

developed countries. Enterprises are at

the same time in favour of selective and more sophisticated bibliographic or factographic information, concerning all

existing technical regulations, which

contain parameters as to the quality of

products , methods of testing , etc . , which

are indispensable for their decisions.

Without such prompt and complete information, attempts to promote the export of

goods or know-how might be unsuccessful.

For example, in Japan over a ten-year

period the exporters of steel and ferrous

metals asked the national standards information centre about the following types of

standards. The number of enquiries con- cerning each type are shown as percentages

of the total number of enquiries. ASTM

standards: 18 per cent, British standards:

10 per cent, DIN standards: 9 per cent

and ANSI standards: 7 per cent. In the

same period the exporters of machinery

asked for ISO standards: 12.5 per cent,

ASME standards: 11 per cent, ANSI standards: 10 per cent and DIN standards: 8

per cent.

The Polish Information Centre has noticed

recently the interest of industry and

trade in the following standards:

for machinery - 33 per cent DIN standards,

15 per cent GCST standards, 5 per cent

ANSI standards and

for chemistry - 30 per cent DIN standards,

14 per cent GCST standards, 5 per cent

ANSI standards and 2.5 per cent British

standards

.

Of course the structure of inquiries on

foreign standards depends in each country on the economic and technical orientation

and can always change according to the

economic situation or business outlook.

This means that information must be easily

accessible and open to all, anytime and

anywhere. That is why the existing methods of international exchange of

information on standards and similar documents, based mostly on copies of standards or catalogues of standards, should be

supplemented or even replaced as scon as possible by more convenient and more

effective methods of preparation and re- trieval of information concerning national

and inter national staindards and similar

technical regulations. This leads in the same direction as the requirements of the

so-called GATT Standards Code* and

is the reason why ISO has established the

information exchange, known as ISCNET.

*Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade

GATT, 12 April 1979, Geneva.

24
STATEMENT - PRESENTED BEFORE THE SYMPOSIUM

ON INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS INFORMATION AND

ISONET

Mr. Curt Mohr, DIN- Deutsches Institute fur

Normung

I am pleased to be given the opportunity

to attend the Symposium and to present a

short contribution as an ISONET member

caning from a Western Europe country.

Recently, at Vienna a big United Nations

Conference on Science and Technology for

Development took place. At that Conference it was stated that in only six

countries - the USA, the USSR, Japan,

France, Great Britain and the Federal

Republic of Germany - 70 per cent of all

scientists work who are available in the

world for research and development, and

that these six countries give out 85 per

cent of the money which is spent in the

world for research and development.

You all know that a great deal of know-hew

and state-of-the-art is represented by the

technical standards of a country. It is,

therefore, a must especially for the highindustrialized countries to facilitate the access to their standards and the knowledge

contained therein, in order

- to remove barriers to trade and

- to assist technology transfer.

DIN - The German Standards Institute

I am working with DIN, the German Standards

Institute. It is a private organization

recognized by the government of the Federal

Republic of Germany as the standardswriting organization in the country.

DIN is now 62 years old, as ANSI is. The

headquarters is in Berlin since its creation

in 1917. DIN procedures are very similar

to those of ANSI:

We publish all standards projects in our monthly bulletin ; we invite all interested

parties - domestic and from abroad - to

take part in the work; we publish the

drafts and invite those who comment, to

join the further consideration; and, we have

an appeal procedure.

About 700 people work full time for the

organization, and we count that 40,000

experts sit in the 2,000 committees of

DIN. At present, about 23,000 DIN standards and drafts are valid. Many of them,

especially the most modern ones, transfer

results of the international standardization done by ISO and IEC, into the national

field.

German Information Centre on Technical

Rules (DITR)

23,000 standards - that is too much to

give the user only a catalogue to find out

what he needs. DIN, therefore, stored the

information of its standards into a data

bank. To this aim, DIN owns a computer

with 1 megabyte capacity of its main

storage. The data bank on DIN standards

allows not only to prepare automatically

the yearbook and an accumulated supplement

each month but also answers to individual

questions which are mainly applicationoriented. Research in this data bank is

also possible from remote data terminals.

In running such an information service we

have learned that it is not sufficient to

tell the user which DIN standards are available for his aim. The user wants to

know whether there is any rule which he

has to or should observe. Of special

interest to him is, of course, whether

technical regulations of the government

exist in his case e.g. for personal safety or energy conservation.

We made an investigation on how many

technical rules exist in the Federal Republic - technical rules - that means

recommendations of different associations,

DIN standards. . . up to technical regulations of different authorities. Now, the

number is greater than 40,000 which DIN

standards are the half of. Recently, we

made the next step from the existing DIN

standards data base to one which will include all technical rules which are valid

in our country.

25
Starting this month, with the financial

support of the Federal Government, DIN is

building up a German Information Centre on

Technical Rules (DITR) in Berlin. We hope

to be able in the next five years to input

all national technical rules into a new

data base. We know that for a qualified

information service the computer is only a

help. We also need assistance and expertise from standards engineers. The whole

technical staff of DIN is, therefore, con- sidered as part of the system. Our

Information Centre is prepared to fulfill

the obligations of the GATT Agreement on

Technical Barriers to Trade concerning

information on technical rules.

DITR and ISONET

Our information system, again, is considered

as part of ISONET, the worldwide information

network on standards. Why? The main

reason is an economic one. It costs a lot

to elaborate qualified information about our national technical rules. We concen- trate ourselves on this activity and we

hope that many other countries will do a

similar job so that we may exchange information.

Two years ago we have found that the ISO

members together have approximately 200,000

standards. In the Federal Republic of

Germany the some 20,000 DIN standards are supplemented by more than 20,000 additional

documents, e.g. technical regulations. If

the same ratio is applicable to all countries, ISONET has to deal with 400,000

documents. Presumably, the actual figure is

considerably higher.

This is not much compared with millions of

patents. The frequent amendments and re- visions of technical rules are the

particularity

.

At least within five years an ISO standard

as well as an ANSI standard as well as a DIN standard should be reviewed - maybe not

20 per cent but 15 per cent of all standards

will be reissued every year in the future - that means 60,000 out of 400,000 documents.

And each of the revised or amended documents

is connected with others. If the average

number of affected documents is three or

four, the data records of half of all the

stored documents would have to be altered

every year!

Therefore, we believe in ISONET because we

hope that by parallel activities the work

will be shared, at least in the most important countries which are from our view:

the USA, France and Great Britain.

The conditions and rules for an information

exchange have been or are established by

the ISO Committee INFCO for ISONET.

Without mutually agreed rules an information exchange is not possible. Among the

rules the coming ISONET Thesaurus is an

important tool for an international information interchange.

We in DIN started our data bank work in

assigning free keywords to each standard.

Now, we have about 100,000 keywords in the

computer but you would never find the relevant standard if you look for "subway"

and the standard has been stored with the

keyword "underground".

So it is better to have a structured and

controlled vocabulary called a thesaurus.

In international information exchange a

thesaurus has the bid advantage, too, that

the same keyword can be given in several

languages. Today, you are forced to direct

questions to the DIN data bank in German.

With the ISONET Thesaurus you can formulate

your questions in English, the computer

will translate them into German - and otherwise round. The titles of our standards are stored already in English as well as in

German but not the keywords.

There is no other possibility for an worldwide information interchange on standards. We cannot believe that all countries

will store in English their own standards

information which is primarily needed for

national use. Here, I see a big difference

against scientific data bases.

On the other hand we must be aware the use

of an ISONET Thesaurus is a long-range

program. Before DIN begins the reindexing

of all its standards it must be sure that

the Thesaurus is workable. We are, however,

prepared to prove the Thesaurus and if it is a good one, to introduce it in our work,

step by step.

Important is that we - and I am convinced

this will include the USA - work close

together now to this end because a delay

will in no way shorten the implementation

period. ISONET is in the interest of all

trading countries but needs big efforts on

all sides.

26
PRESENTATION ON THE STANDARDS COINCIL OF

CANADA AND THEIR ROLE IN INFORMATION EXCHANGE

Mr. Albert A. Tunis, Standards Council of

Canada

The Standards Council of Canada is a

cooperation established by Act of

Parliament in I960 to foster and promote voluntary standardization in Canada. Although

financed by Parliament appropriations, it is

independent with respect to its policies and

programs activities. The Council itself is

composed of 57 members, 41 representing a

cross-section of private interests (national

industrial, professional, labor, consumer

interests and standards organizations) , 6

from the public service (federal) and 10

members appointed by the provincial governments. It is this body that sponsors and

approves the development and implementation

of policies respecting voluntary standardization, testing and certification of

conformity with voluntary standards, and is

responsible for coordinating these activities in Canada.

The structure within which the Council

carries out its responsibilities under the

Act is known as the National Standards

System. Today, the System consists of a

federation embracing five accredited standards-writing organizations and the two

National Committees responsible for

Canadian participation in international

standardization work, supported by their

associated advisory and coordinating

committees. The Council itself is the

coordinating body of the System. The accre- ditation to the System of certification

organizations and testing laboratories is

presently under active deliberation.

The term "federation" is used advisedly to

describe the National Standards System.

The Standards Council Act stipulates that,

in carrying out its objects and exercising

its powers, the Council shall, to the greatest extent possible, "make use of the

services and facilities of existing organizations in Canada engaged in standards

formulation, testing and certification. . .

The purpose of the SCC, as indicated at the

outset is to foster, coordinate and promote

voluntary standardization in Canada as a

r.veans of advancing the national economy,

and to ensure effective Canadian participation in the work of international

standardization. The Council does not write,

publish or sell standards, nor does it intend to engage in certification, testing or

quality assurance activities. It organizes,

supervises and acts as official spokesman

of the "federation" which is made up of

individual standards organizations either

public or private.

The accredited standards-writing

organizations of the National Standards

System, as of this date, are: the Canadian

Gas Association (CGA) ; the Canadian Government Specifications Board (CGSB) ; the

Canadian Standards Association (CSA) ; the

Underwriters' Laboratories of Canada (ULC)

and the Bureau de normalisation du Quebec

(BNQ) . Within its overall standardswriting programme, each organization operates

in an agreed group of designated subject

areas from which it may submit its standards

to the Standards Council for approval as National Standards of Canada. Together,

these five standards-writing organizations

have about 5,000 standards in current issue,

of which about 240 have been accepted to

date by the Standards Council as National

Standards of Canada. In total more than

8,000 individuals serve on the technical

committees that have been established by

these organizations to write standards.

A number of other Canadian organizations

prepare or adopt and publish voluntary standards. Apart from the Associate. Committees on the National Building Code and the National

Fire Code, both sponsored by the National

Research Council (NRC) , none of them would

appear to issue many standards which have

significant implications for international

trade, although this requires confirmation.

Canadian participation in international

standards work is an integral part of the

National Standards System. The Standards

Council of Canada represents Canada as the

Canadian member body of the International

Organization for Standardization (ISO) and

sponsors the Canadian Committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

27
It also maintains liaison with and

participates in the work of other international organizations engaged in the

formulation of voluntary standards.

The Standards Council of Canada is

empowered under its Act to, inter alia,

"promote, in cooperation with

Canadian organizations engaged

in voluntary standards formulation, testing and certification —

arrangements with organizations

similarly engaged in other countries for the exchange of information

and for cooperation in such activities"; and "collect, translate and

distribute information on standards

and standardization activities — in

and outside Canada.

The Council has established a Standards,

Information Service (SIS) which provides

free of charge to any inquirer information on National Standards of Canada and standards published by Canadian standardswriting organizations accredited by the

Council. SIS also provides information on

standards published by the national standards bodies of 12 other countries, more

than 60 trade, Indus- fry and professional

associations, as well as the International

Organizati n for Standardization (ISO) and

the Intern .tional Electrotechnical

Commissior (IEC) . Information is derived

for the most part from catalogues and

publications lists of these organizations,

and directories and indexes of standards.

It is usually limited to advice on whether

or not a standard for a certain product

exists, and if so, the name and address of

the organization that prepared it.

The Standards Information Service is located

in the offices of the Standards Council in

Ottawa. The service provides practical

assistance to meet the national and international needs of the users. It is designed

to serve all users of standards, such as:

On National Level

. Federal, Provincial and local government

agencies

;

. Public and private bodies and individuals;

. Standards-writing organizations and

committees concerned with any aspect of

standardization

;

On International Level

. Other members of ISONET - the international standards information network of

the International Organization for

Standardization (ISO)

;

. Canadian-held Secretariats of technical

committees, sub-committees or working

groups of ISO and of the International

Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)

;

. Canadian Committees involved in the work

of ISO and IEC and their delegates to

international meetings.

In surmary, the service assists callers in

verifying the existence of standards,

whether national, international or foreign,

identifying the documents in question and

directing the inquirer to the appropriate

sources to procure documents. Technical

and procedural questions relating to specific standards are referenced to the

organizations which prepare and publish the

documents, and in the case of international

and foreign standards, this involves re- ferral to the Council's International

Standardization Branch in Mississauga,

Ontario.

The service in Ottawa has an INWATS

telephone number which permits the user to

call the service from any point in Canada, on a toll-free basis.

To support the SIS in its work, the Council

approved the establishment of an Advisory

Committee on a Standards Information Service (ACSIS) . Its general terms of

reference are "to develop procedures and

responsibilities for the operation of the

service and to advise Council on matters

affecting the continuing operation and

development of the service, on the basis of an orgoing analysis and assessment of inforrnatioa requirements", on both national and

international levels. In an important

respect this Committee is a reflection of

the National Standards System, in that

representatives from each of the accredited

standards-writing organizations make up the core of the membership. This reflects the

Council's "coordination" thrust, as it is

considered important to maintain close

oorttnunication links between the national

standards information service maintained

by Council and the information services

28
which each standards organization provide

for its respective constituents - clearly

an indispensable "specialized" complement

to the general information activities

pursued by the SIS.

In order to meet its obligations and

respond to inquiries in the best possible

way, the SIS has created and is continuing

to build a documentation collection of

standards and standards related documentation. The SIS maintains complete

collections of standards published by the

five accredited standards-writing organizations, the American Society for Testing

and Materials (ASTM) and the American

National Standards Institute (ANSI) . In

addition, since March 1978, the SIS has

received and added to its documentation

collection a copy of each ISO and IEC standard as they are published. This

documentation collection is available for

reference and review purposes in Ottawa and

to the general public.

In 1977, the SIS produced its first

Directory and Index of Standards, a publication whicn presented in key-word format

a compilation of all standards published

by the five accredited standards-writing

organizations. The first supplement to

this publication was published in 1978, the

second supplement in 1979. Together these

three volumes provide a complete reference

of Canadian voluntary standards effective

December 31, 1978.

A new cumulative edition of the Directory

is planned for 1980. In addition to all

the material included in the first three

volumes, it will include all additions,

revisions, and cancellations of standards

published by the five accredited standardswriting organizations, during 1979.

ISONET

Created by ISO, ISONET is a world-wide

network of standards information centres.

ISONET is a completely decentralized operation. Each member is responsible for

collecting and indexing its own information

and for making it available to others in

the approved exchange format. The main

purpose of ISONET, is to provide the

framework and procedures to facilitate

the international exchange of information

about standards and technical requirements.

Clearly, the Council's Standards

Information Services (SIS) meets all the

conditions for Type 1 membership in ISONET

and indeed the SCC has already indicated

its readiness to assume membership. Not

only has an information activity been well

established but the majority of Canadian

voluntary standards have been indexed and

published in such a way as to comprehend

most of the mandatory elements defined in

part 1.1 of the ISONET Manual. A more

comprehensive reindexing of Canadian

documents is foreseen as a major task for

the future but as one which the SIS can

assume at the appropriate time.

The SIS, as previously stated is continuing

to build up its data base and documentation

service. Two recently completed projects

will be published shortly: an index of

standards and specifications issued by

Federal government departments and agencies, representing some 2,700 documents;

an index of standards referenced in Federal

government acts and technical regulations.

The SIS is preparing to consider two similar projects on the provincial government

level and is aware of the need to identify

all standards developed by Canadian non- accredited standards-writing organizations.

A great deal has been accomplished in a relatively short time but much remains to

be done.

As will be clear from the foregoing, the

Council has, in effect, created a central

standards information capability required

for satisfying national needs for standards

information and along with the lines

necessary for participation in the work of

ISONET. In so doing, it has created a facility which is ready to play a role in

the implementation of the proposed GAIT

Code of Conduct for Preventing Technical

Barriers to Trade. While it is somewhat

early to predict how Canada would proceed

to implement the Operative Provisions,

Part D - Information and Assistance , discussions have been held between the

29
Standards Council and the appropriate

federal government department, (the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce - ITC)

at the latter 's initiative. Indeed, formal proposals for implementation have been

prepared and published by ITC but have yet

to be considered and approved by the

federal government. The recent federal

election in Canada has undoubtedly re- tarded consideration of the implementation

document. It would be appropriate, here,

to outline the form of the current proposals, always remembering that these are only proposals which have not yet received

official sanction in Canada.

Section 16 of the Code would obligate the

federal government to ensure , inter alia,

that an enquiry point exists which is able

to answer all reasonable enquiries from

interested parties in other adherents re- garding technical regulations and standards

adopted or proposed by federal, provincial, territorial or municipal governments, or regulatory bodies, or by regional

bodies of which they are members or participants, and any certification systems

operated or proposed by one or other of

them. It would also obligate the federal

government to use all reasonable means within its power to ensure that one or more enquiry points exist which would be

able to answer all reasonable enquiries

from interested parties in other adherents

regarding standards adopted or proposed by

voluntary standardizing bodies or by

regional bodies of which they are members

or participants, and also regarding any

certification systems operated by non- governmental certification bodies or of

which such bodies are members or participants.

Given its mandate and its current

activities in the field of standards information, the Standards Council would seem

to be the appropriate organization to

establish and operate the Canadian Enquiry

Point for the purpose of the Code. For the

same reasons, the Council would also seem

to be the appropriate organization to

collect and provide information to interested governmental and nongovernmental

organizations in Canada on existing and

proposed international standards and certification systems, Canadian teclinical

regulations, standards and certification

systems, and on selected regional and

foreign technical regulations, standards

and certification systems which might have

important implications for Canada's trade.

Given both of these functions, the Council

would be the logical organization to send

to and receive from the GATT Secretariat

notification of proposed technical regulations and certification systems in

accordance with the provisions of the Code,

acting as the agent of the federal government for this purpose.

It is clear, however, that in order to

function effectively as the Canadian Enquiry Point, the cooperation of various

levels of government (federal, provincial

and territorial), regulatory bodies, voluntary bodies, voluntary nongovernmental

standardizing bodies and certification

bodies would be essential: they would be

required to provide to the Standards Council such information on their existing or proposed technical regulations, standards

and certification systems as would be

necessary for the appropriate functions of an Enquiry Point. The federal government

and the Standards Council cannot force

this issue with their respective constituents, and so will have to use all

reasonable means within its power to ensure agreement of all concerned to comply with

the provisions of the Code that apply to

their respective activities.

The information and Communication System

foreseen for Canada is depicted in the

accompanyina two flowcharts (see Appendix

1 and 2) . In brief, the Central Enquiry

Point, which would be established and

operated by the Standards Council of

Canada (under contract to the appropriate

branch of ITC responsible for complementation and administration of the Code in

Canada) would perform the following ser- vices :

i) answer enquiries from interested

parties in other adherents re- garding cechnical regulations

and standards adopted or proposed by governmental or non- governmental bodies in Canada, or by regional bodies of which

they are members or participants,

30
and regarding certification

systems or proposed certification systems operated by

governmental or nongovernmental

bodies in Canada or of which

such bodies are members or

participants, and regarding

the location of notices published pursuant to the Code;

ii) provide information on international, regional, foreign and

Canadian technical regulations,

standards and certification

systems to standards-writing

organizations and other interested bodies in Canada, obtaining

where necessary to perform this

service, information from international and regional bodies, and

bodies in the territories or other adherents; and

iii) send to and receive from GAIT

Secretariat notifications con- cerning technical regulations

and certification systems

through normal government

channels

;

iv) arrange for the Canadian Institute

for Scientific and Technical

Information (CISTI) or some other appropriate organization

to acquire reference collections of technical regulations,

standards, and rules of certifications systems adopted by

international bodies in Canada,

and reference collections of

selected technical regulations,

standards, and rules of certification systems adopted by

governmental and nongovernmental

bodies in countries with which

Canada trades

;

v) arrange for the Translation

Bureau of the Department of

the Secretary of State to provide translation services

required to operate the Canadian

Enquiry Point; and

vi) sell or otherwise provide to

interested parties in Canada

copies of international standards published by treaty or

31

nontreaty international standardizing

bodies.

In addition to establishing a mechanism

for handling requests from other adherents, a mechanism would be required to ensure

that Canada takes advantage of the opportunity which would be provided by these

provisions to comment on technical regulations, standards certification systems

proposed by other adherents that might

create obstacles to Canada's trade. Since

the Standards Council of Canada, in operating the Canadian Enquiry Point, would be

recruired to have information on technical

regulations, standards and certification

systems proposed by federal provincial,

territorial and municipal government departments and agencies, regulatory bodies,

voluntary standardizing bodies and non- governmental bodies, and to be in frequent

communication with these bodies for this

purpose, it would be the logical organization to provide this consultative

mechanism, acting as the agent of the

federal government where proposed technical

regulations or rules of certification

systems are concerned.
APPENDIX 1

32
APPENDIX 2

c _____

33

A SMALL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD OF STANDARDS

Mr. Gudbrand Jenssen, Norges Standardisringsforbund

Background

Norway is the least populated country in

Europe with 4 million inhabitants on an

area half the size of Texas. The Norwegian

language can only be used in the Scandinavian countries, and to communicate with

the rest of the about 200 million Europeans, we have to learn foreign languages.

Our home market is small and our industry

is dependent on export. Of all the things

I wear today, nothing bears the

mark "made in Norway." This might illustrate why we use 4,748 dollars per head

in our international trade (that means

irport and export) while the U.S.. figures

are as low as 1,134 dollars per head,

mainly due to your size and your selfcon- tained market.

In your country you debate if Chrysler shall

go bankrupt or be saved by the government.

In my country the bankruptcy of a small com- pany with 25 employees in one of the

smaller municipalities will, more often

than not, be brought to the government or

even direct to the prime minister for a

solution.

The Norwegian Standards Association, that

I represent, is a private enterprise. The

members are industrial and commercial or- ganizations and enterprises, the labour

union and the employers' confederation,

municipalities and governmental departments.

The members pay an annual fep ^anqing from

U.S. dollars 100 to 2000. Sixty per cent of

the income is sales of standards, 25 per

cent is a government grant. Tne Norwegian

Standards - about 2000 - are voluntary,

but approximately 10 per cent have been

made compulsory by the government.

Information and Sales

We have two basic concepts for our general

information activities. One is to provide

information on standards and sell them, the

other one is the missionary type, spreading the gospel of standardization.

We have most requests for information on

foreign standards. One third of our total

sales are foreign or international standards. The sales are concentrated around a limited number of countries: German

standards 29 per cent, U.S. standards

26 per cent, British and International

standards each about 15 per cent and

Swedish standards 11 per cent.

The U.S. percentage shews an interesting

development from about 11 per cent before

1976 to 26 per cent in 1977 and 1978. The

main reason is that Norway has "gone oilic"

in the North Sea, and the American Petroleum Institute's standards are used

everywhere where oil drilling and production are in question. I may mention that

thanks to the API standards, Red Adair was

able to stop the blow-out we had in the

North Sea some time ago, because he was

familiar with the construction of the

valves and had his own special spare parts.

Very often a request for information is

accompanied with an order for the standards. In urgent cases we pride ourselves

that the customer will have the standards on his table within two days wherever in

Norway he is situated. That is if he re- quires standards issued by ASTM, BSI, or

DIN, because we have an agreement with

them that allows us to copy the standards

and reimburse the organization with 40 per

cent of the sales price.

I regret to say that some American

standards organizations are working along

lines that must be detrimental to their

progress by requiring the money before

dispatch of the standards, resulting in

delivery times of 3-6 weeks. This is universal for all deliveries to Europe and

not only to my small country. In Europe we deliver the standards with payment within 30 days and we have a loss of less than

0.3 per cent, mainly due to contractors

going bankrupt.

To facilitate sales, we have a standing

order system where a customer gets all new

standards within the groups he wishes.

By using EDP we effectuate orders and invoices at very low costs and we use a mailing service for the actual dispatch.

That means that our own sales staff is

geared only on the daily input of orders

by mail, telex or telephone.

35
The standards organizations in the Nordic

countries - Denmark, Finland, Norway and

Sweden - cooperate in the production of a bimonthly bulletin where 20 to 30 pages are giving information on new standards only.

Here we have all new standards or proposals

from ASTM, MSI, BSI, DIN, ISO, IEC, CEN

and CENELEC, and the Nordic countries.

Annually, we issue a Norwegian Standards

Catalogue with titles in Norwegian and

English. Already in 1970, EDP was used to

provide manuscripts for photosetting of our

Catalogue.

All this information, however, is what I'll

call passive information. It only gives us contact with those who are already aware of

the existence of the standards and familiar

with their use.

I would therefore like to touch upon the

second concept; our activities for getting

the message about standardization out to

the general public.

Active Information

When we believe a national or foreign

standard to be important to larger groups or users, or that the standard is so special that this in itself makes it interesting, we issue press releases.

Each year we have produced an annual review

on our activities, and every year it got

bigger, nicer and more expensive. Made in

6,000 copies, we realized that the impact on

the society was next to nothing. In connection with our General Assembly this year, we decided to make the annual review simple

and cheap, and use the money saved in advertising. We have also an information

service linked to the active sales of standards. Here we send offers for standing

orders on standards within selected fields

to different branches of industry, cuts

from catalogues on selected topics like

plastics, textiles and more. The least

successful is participation in fairs and

exhibitions

.

- Relationship with the Government

Even though we are not a governmental

agency, official matters regarding standards

or standardization are forwarded to our organization. Again because we are small, I

alone am the person in our organization

that deals with the matters on behalf of

the government in EFTA (the European Free

Trade Area) , the ECE (the United Nations

Economic Commission for Europe) and for

the GATT. Thus for example at the annual

meeting of the United Nations' Economic

Commission for Europe, the Ambassador of

Norway reads the text I have proposed under

the agenda point standardization. On behalf of the Ministry on Commerce, I have

made the extract of the GATT-agreement

which is to be presented to the Parliament

for ratification. I am also responsible

for the Norwegian translation of the GATTagreement.

In our collaboration with the authorities we have tried to provide service without

first asking for the money for doing the

services. That has resulted in an attitude in some of the ministries that what

concerns standardization is left to the

Norwegian Standards Association.

I do not tell this to brag about my or our

capabilities or deficiencies, but to give

you an impression of how closely we are knit together and depend on each other in a

small country.

The European Free Trade Area

In the European Free Trade Area (EFTA)

there was already in 1966 established a no- tification procedure where all new

regulations having an impact on the international trade are to be notified to all

EFTA countries through the EFTA secretariat

in Geneva. The EFTA countries are as you

may know Portugal, Finland, Austria,

Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway.

UK and Denmark were also EFTA-members before they joined the European Community.

The task of handling this notification has

been left to us. That means that we on

behalf of the Ministry on Commerce request

comments from interested parties on notifications from the other EFTA-members. The

Norwegian notifications and comments are often rewritten in English by us. In addition there is on an informal level a possibility of commenting upon proposed

Directives from the European Community

through the EFTA-secretariat. In this we

rely upon the Federation of Norwegian

Industries and the Norwegian Export to provide us with comments.

36
UN's Economic Camiission for Europe, ECE

When the United Nations' Economic Commission

for Europe, ECE, took up standardization in

1970, we were already in the EFTA business,

and the secretariat for the Norwegian ECE

activities is in our organization, with me

as the secretary, again a left-hand task.

In accordance with the recommendations by

the ECE Governmental Officials Responsible

-for Standardization Policies, the Norwegian

Standards Association has been appointed

the inquiry point for request for information on technical regulations and standards.

That is the reason why we make and yearly

revise the "Catalogue on Norwegian Technical Regulations".

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GATT

I probably don't have to state that our

organization will be the inquiry point in

accordance with the GATT requirements.

We have for a long time advocated that the

borderline between standards and technical

regulations is diffuse, because what is

standard in one country may be a technical

regulation in another country. We will

therefore incorporate in our data-base for

standards the Norwegian technical regulations. This will be done free of charge

because the number of new Norwegian technical regulations in a year is negligible

compared to the 200 to 300 new Norwegian

standards that will be incorporated every

year.

ISONET

For us the cooperation in ISONET has made

it possible to establish the system for

indexing and information retrieval that

might have been very costly for us alone.

The ISONET system has the advantage of being

adopted by all the Nordic countries, so we

will have the advantage of making a joint

system. We issue already, as I mentioned

before, a bimonthly list of new standards

from 12 selected organizations.

By pooling our national data-bases, the

joint Nordic data-base will be rather important for our exchange with other members

of the ISONET. You know that three of the

Nordic countries have created the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) in order to get

sufficient strength for negotiating landing

rights in the different countries. In the

ISONET cooperation we will form a Nordic

net with the four countries Denmark,

Finland, Norway and Sweden together. Only

by doing this do we have sufficient

strength to negotiate exchange with the

larger members of ISONET.

Our standards catalogue has been printed by

computer assistance since 1970. This year we adjusted the information in accordance

with the ISONET Manual. The data-base is

produced for us by the Norwegian Centre

for Informatics in cooperation with the

printer of the catalogue and as a byproduct

of the catalogue production, the data-base

is now available on-line for information

retrieval in the Norwegian Centre for Informatics. We can search in the data-base

by keywords in the standards' titles as well as other registered keywords - both in

Norwegian and English. The data-base is now a part of the Scandinavian information

network SCANNET.

I would like to stress that probably the

most important part in our system is our

cooperation with the Norwegian Centre for

Informatics. Apart from the very small sum we pay for using its expertise to establish

the data-base, we have achieved that the

information is stored in the information

centre itself and part of its information

service.

Until now standards have not been considered

as literature and are not incorporated in

the professional information centres. That means that people requesting information

from these centres are informed about technical articles published in a magazine or

book by a young student or an eminent

scientist, but no information is given on

standards in the field. To prove it we

asked the Norwegian Centre for Informatics

to contact data-banks in some U.S. information centres to see if some of the

following standards were included:

ANSI/ASME BPV ASME Boiler and Pressure

Vessel Code

ANSI/ASTM A20-78 Standard Requirements for

Steel Plates for Pressure

Vessels

ANSI/ASTM E4-72 Standard Methods of

Verification of Testing

Machines

37
ISO 361-1975

ISO 435-1975

ISO 1000-1973

Basic Ionizing Radiation

Symbol

Documentary Reproduction - ISO Conventional Typographical Character for Legibility

Tests (ISO Character)

SI Units and Recommendations

for the Use of Their Multiples and of Certain Other

Units

ISO 1502-1978 ISO General Purpose Metric

Screw Threads - Gauging

ISO 1503-1977 Geometrical Orientation and

Directions of Movements

ISO/R 1831- 1971 Printing Specifications

for Optical Character

Recognition

ISO 2240-1972 Photography - Determination

of ISO Speed of Colour Reversal Films for Still

Photography - Sensitometric

Exposure and Evaluation

Method

ISO 2573-1977 Tensile Testing Systems - Determination of K-Values

ISO 2604/1-1975 Steel Products for Pressure

Purposes - Quality Requirements - Part I: Forgings

The two information centres were: The

National Technical Information Service

(NTIS) , U.S. Department of Commerce,

Springfield, Virginia and the COMPENDEX

produced by Engineering Index, Inc., in

New York. The NTIS data-base consists of

information on government sponsored research, development and engineering reports

and may probably be excused for not incorporating standards.

The COMPENDEX, however, according to its own description, "provides the engineering

and information communities with abstracted

information from the world's significant

engineering and technological literature.

The 'EI data-base provides worldwide coverage of the journal literature, publications

of engineering societies and organizations,

papers from the proceedings of conferences

and selected government reports and books."

The result of our inquiry shows that at

least the 14 standards we asked for were not

considered to be among "the world's significant engineering and technological

literature"

.

Through ISONET we have got a tool for

cooperation with the professional information centres, which may contribute to

establish standards as "significant engineering and technological literature".

Until we have achieved this, we have not

done our job properly.

ISO 3290-1975 Rolling Bearings - Bearing

Parts - Balls for Rolling

Bearings

ISO 4759/1-1978 Tolerances for Fasteners - Part I - Bolts, Screws

and Nuts With Thread Diameters Between 1,6

(inclusive) and 150 mm (inclusive) and Product Grades

A, B and C

After having contacted two information

centres, the Norwegian Centre for Informatics said we were wasting our money and

concluded that this was not the method to

obtain information on standards.

38
AFNOR AND INFORMATION ABOITT STANDARDS AND

RELATED MATTER

Mr. Daniel Geronimi, Association Francaise

de Normalisation

The Evolution of AFNOR 's Conception of

Documentation

The need for information on standards came at the beginning from our national customers, and AFNOR center of documentation was

created to answer this particular need.

Then AFNOR was associated by the French

government to the GATT discussions in the

field of coordination of technical regulations.

AFNOR had, from that time, the opportunity

to foresee the importance of information

and to follow the evolution of GATT.

The first idea was to separate legal

national regulations from nonlegal ones: were considered as belonging to the first

category, the pure technical regulations or

standards, aimed to the protection of citizens or environment, and to the second

category the regulations including a notion

of technical barrier to international trade.

But very soon it appeared that this separation was very difficult to establish and

that there wasn't a clearly defined border

between both. Rather than trying to eliminate nonlegal regulations it seemed easier

to organize international information on all

the types of documents which might set up a technical barrier: because barriers are created at least as much through a lack of

information about standards as through

their existence. The idea of an international information network was born.

AFNOR, at that time decided, to invest in

that field by automatising its center of

documentation to be able to follow the

evolution and to process other documents

than standards.

At the same time, ISONET was created among

members of ISO to anticipate the international evolution of GATT discussions and

to prepare each country to get ready to

answer the requests of its government.

AFNOR participated in the settlement of

ISONET and assumed several functions:

- member of the network

- language agency for the French

- international center for the thesaurus

processing

I'll mention also the name of

Raymond FRONTARD, the previous General

Director of AFNOR and first chairman of

ISONET MANAGEMENT BOARD.

The AFNOR center of documentation had to

apply the guidelines established by ISONET.

The Center of Documentation of AFNOR, and

Processing of Information

The center of documentation performs

mainly four kinds of services:

1. Library opened to visitors and which

presents a collection of 300,000

documents:

French standards, technical specifications and regulations

French standard type documents and

related matter

- international standards

- foreign standards and some other important documents

2. Processing of Enquiries for internal and

customers' needs. Enquiries can arrive by

letter, telex,- phone and soon also by

terminal. They are processed by a team

through manual files, catalogs, indexes or

an automatic information retrieval system

called NORIA. Next year the access to our automatic system NORIA will be possible

on-line through a host computer connected

on a national teletransmission network.

NORIA

NORIA has an automatic file including about

20,000 documents:

- 10,000 French standards

2,000 French draft standards

4,000 French technical regulations in

the field of agriculture

4,000 ISO standards

39
The structure of this file is in conformity

with ISONET guidelines. All the documents

are indexed with ISONET THESAURUS. Exchanges with other countries through

magnetic tapes are possible.

3. Selective Diffusion of Information

consists in the circulation of specific

information about standards and related

matter to customers interested in a particular field of standardization.

4. Translation of Foreign Standards

Among other departments that deal with

information , I ' 11 mention the Sales Department which manages orders for any kind of

national and international standard and

standard type documents, the Public Relations Department responsible for the issuing

of the yearbook, it's monthly updating, and

last but not least, a new department called

NOREX.

The aim of NOREX is to help exporters to

solve their problems in relation with

standards and technical regulations. It

has been created by reference to its big

brother the TECHNICAL HELP TO EXPORTERS

that remains our guide.

After the very good speech we had yesterday on Technical Help to Exporters, I'll just

insist on the differences between "THE" and

NOREX.

If "THE" is an integrated system including

a documentation center, a technical staff,

and a laboratory, NOREX on the contrary is a decentralized organization working with the

documentation center of AFNOR, a small staff

of advisers and laboratories independent

from AFNOR, and of the French Trade Center.

NOREX as "THE" processes enquiries on

foreign standards and regulations, analysis

of differences between foreign and French

standards but its first know-how is in the

field of assistance in certification of

products according to foreign procedures,

with the help of laboratories having particular agreements of mutual recognition.

AFNOR and ISONET

AFNOR has invested a lot in the field of

information bv developing its automatic

system NORIA and by assuring its compatibility with ISONET guidelines (about 3 million dollars) . Seme experimental ex- changes have been successful, in particular

with the Polish Institute, proving that

ISONET may work on a larger scale. Recent

decisions of GAIT dealing with international information on technical documents

confirm the interest of the subject and

that ISONET policy was a good choice.

It seems urgent that ISONET should become

an operating system to answer needs of

governments in relation with GATT decisions,

and should be able to keep the control of

information about their own standards.

AFNOR and GATT

Presently a large project is under

discussion with the French administration

to appoint AFNOR as the national enquiry

point according to the GATT recommendation

,

because of AFNOR' s knowledge in the field

of standardization and information, and the

existence of its automatic system NORIA

which now includes about 20,000 technical

references

.

The project is made up of three

propositions

:

1. The official appointment, recognized by

all the ministries, of AFNOR as the center

of a national network between all the departments producing technical regulations.

This network would be necessary for the

updating of information. A bilateral agreement exists in that field between The

Ministry of Agriculture and AFNOR since

1978 and could be used as an example for

agreements with other ministries.

2. The cataloging of the ministerial

agencies or departments producing technical

regulations in France, and the compilation

of all the documents in use.

AFNOR has compiled till now about 5,000

documents, but the file is far from being

exhaustive as the number generally admitted is about 25,000 technical regulations.

3. The Financial Point of View The cost of

the whole program is about 5 million dollars on a period of 3 years. This cost is

supposed to cover a staff of 40 people, the

collection of documents, their indexing

and processing.

It seems that this cost can't be totally

charged to the clients, but on the contrary

could be covered by a governmental subsidy.

We think that after a few years the center

could be financed partly by a subsidy and

partly by direct resources such as subscriptions, sale of information and

documentation, and royalties paid by users

of terminals.

40
LIST OF SPEAKERS

Mr. Donald S. Abelson , Office of the

U.S. Special Trade Representative

1800 G Street, NW. , Room 728

Washington, D.C. 20506

Dr. Lawrence D. Eicher, Director

Office of Engineering Standards

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D.C. 20234

Mr. E. J. French

Director, Information and Public Relations

International Organization for

Standardization (ISO)

Case Postale 56

1211 Geneva 20

Switzerland

Mr. Daniel Geronimi, Association Francaise

de Normalisation (AFNOR)

Tour Europe CEDEX 7

82080 Paris la Defense

France

Mr. Gudbrand Jenssen Norges Standardisringsforbund, (NSF)

Haakon VTI's gate 3

N-OSLO 1

Norway

Mr. Edward Kierski, Chairman of INFCO/WG 4 General Secretary of PKNIM

Polski Komitet Normalizacji i Miar

UL. Elektoralnaz

Warszawa 00-139

Poland

Mr. Jerry Lieblich, President

Global Engineering Documentation

Services, Inc.

3301 West MacArthur Blvd.

Santa Ana, California

Mr. Donald Mitchell

Department of Defense

2 Skyline Place

5203 Leesburg Pike, Suite 1403

Falls Church, Virginia 22401

Mr. Curt Mohr, DIN-Deutsches

Institut fur Normung e.V.

Burgqrafenstrasse 4-7

Postfach 1107

D-1000 Berlin 30

Germany

Mr. Charles B. Phucas, Group Leader

Standards Information and Development

Services Group

Office of Engineering Standards

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D.C. 20234

Mr. Brian Roden, British Standards Institute, Technical Help to Exporters (THE)

Maylands Avenue

Hemel Hempstead

Herts HP 2 4SQ

England

Mr. Rudy Rutelionis, Vice President

International Marketing

Information Handling Services

Inverness Business Park

15 Inverness Way East

P.O. Box 1154

Englewood, Colorado 80150

Mr. Albert A. Tunis, Director

Education and Information

Standards Council of Canada (SCC)

350 Sparks Street

Ottawa, Ontario KIR 7S8

Canada

41

APPENDIX A

TRADE AGREEMENTS ACT OF 1979

STATEMENTS OF ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION

A draft of proposed legislation to approve and implement

the Trade Agreements negotiated under the Trade Act of 1974,

and for other purposes, together with statements of administrative action summarizing changes in United States

Trade Law necessary or appropriate to implement the agreements submitted as an accompanying part of the message

from the President of the United States transmitting the

agreements, pursuant to Section 102 of the Trade Act of 1974.

43
TITLE IV - TECHNICAL BARRIERS TO TRADE

(STANDARDS)

Subtitle A - Obligations of the United

States

SEC. 401. CERTAIN STANDARDS-RELATED

ACTIVITIES

Nothing in this title may be construed as prohibiting any private person/ Federal

agency, or State agency from engaging in

standards-related activities that do not

create unnecessary obstacles to the foreign commerce of the United States. No

standards-related activity of any private

person, Federal agency, or State agency

shall be deemed to constitute an unnecessary obstacle to foreign commerce of the

United States if the demonstrable purpose

of the standards-related activity is to

achieve a legitimate domestic objective

including, but not limited to, the protection of legitimate health or safety,

essential security, environmental or con- sumer interests if such activity does not

operate to exclude imported products and

which fully meet the objectives of such

activity

SEC. 402. FEDERAL STANDARDS-RELATED ACTIVITIES

No Federal agency may engage in any standards-related activity that creates

unnecessary obstacles to the foreign com- merce of the United States, including, but

not limited to, standards-related activities that violate any of the following

requirements

:

(1) NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT - Each

Federal agency shall ensure, in applying

standards-related activities with respect

to any imported product, that such product

is treated no less favorably than are like

domestic or imported products, including,

but not limited to, when applying tests or

test methods, no less favorable treatment

with respect to -

(A) the acceptance of the product for

testing in comparable situations;

(B) the administration of the tests in

comparable situations;

(C) the fees charged for tests;

(D) the release of test results to the

exporter, importer, or agents;

(E) the siting of testing facilities

and the selection of samples for

testing; and

(F) the treatment of confidential

information pertaining to the product.

(2) USE OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS -

(A) IN GENERAL - Except as provided in

subparagraph (B) (ii) , each Federal

agency, in developing standards, shall

take into consideration international

standards and shall, if appropriate,

base the standards on international

standards.

(B) APPLICATION OF REQUIREMENT - For

purposes of this paragraph, the

following apply:

(i) INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS NOT

APPROPRIATE - The reasons for which

the basing of a standard on an international standard may not be

appropriate include, but are not

limited to, the following:

(I) National security requirements.

(II) The prevention of deceptive

practices

.

(III) The protection of human

health or safety, animal or plant life or health, or the

environment.

(IV) Fundamental climatic or other geographical factors.

(V) Fundamental technological

problems

.

(ii) REGIONAL STANDARDS - In developing standards, a Federal agency

may, but is not required to, take

into consideration any international

standards promulgated by an international standards organization the

membership of which is described in

section 451(6) (A) (ii)

.

(3) PERFORMANCE CRITERIA - Each Federal

agency shall, if appropriate, develop

standards based on performance criteria,

such as those relating to the intended use

of a product and the level of performance

that the product must achieve under the

defined conditions, rather than on design

criteria, such as those relating to the

44
physical form of the product or the types

of material of which the product is made.

(4) CERTIFICATION ACCESS FOR FOREIGN

SUPPLIERS - Each Federal agency shall,

with respect to any certification system

used by it, permit access for obtaining

certification under that system to foreign

suppliers of a product on the same basis

as access is permitted to suppliers of

like products, whether of domestic or

other foreign origin.

SEC. 403. STATE AND PRIVATE STANDARDS-RELATED

ACTIVITIES

(a) IN GENERAL - It is the sense of the

Congress that no State agency and no

private person should engage in any

standards-related activitiy that creates

unnecessary obstacles to the foreign commerce of the United States.

(b) PRESIDENTIAL ACTION - The President

shall take such reasonable measures as may be available to promote the obser- vance by State agencies and private

persons, in carrying out standards-related activities, of requirements

equivalent to those imposed on Federal

agencies under section 402, and of procedures that provide for notification,

participation, and publication with

respect to such activities.

Subtitle B -FUNCTIONS OF FEDERAL AGENCIES

SEC. 411. FUNCTIONS OF SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE

(a) IN GENERAL - The Special Representative shall coordinate the consideration

of international trade policy issues

that arise as a result of, and shall

develop international trade policy as it

relates to, the implementation of this

title.

(b) NEGOTIATING FUNCTIONS - The Special

Representative has responsibility for

coordinating United States discussions

and negotiations with foreign countries

for the purpose of establishing mutual

arrangements with respect to standardsrelated activities. In carrying out

this responsibility, the Special Representative shall inform and consult with

any Federal agency having expertise in

the matters under discussion and negotiation.

(c) CROSS REFERENCE - For provisions

of law regarding general authority of

the Special Representatives with re- spect to trade agreements, see Section 141 of the Trade Act of 1974

(19 U.S.C. 2171)

.

SEC. 412. ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF

TECHNICAL OFFICES

(a) ESTABLISHMENT -

(1) FOR NONAGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS - The Secretary of Commerce shall

establish and maintain within the

Department of Commerce a technical

office that shall carry out the

functions prescribed under subsection (b) with respect to

nonagricultural products.

(2) FOR AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS - The Secretary of Agriculture shall

establish and maintain within the

Department of Agriculture a technical office that shall carry out the

functions prescribed under subsection (b) with respect to

agricultural products.

(b) FUNCTIONS OF OFFICES - The President

shall prescribe for each technical

office established under subsection (a)

such functions as the President deems

necessary or appropriate to implement

this title.

SEC. 413. REPRESENTATION OF UNITED STATES

INTERESTS BEFORE INTERNATIONAL

STANDARDS ORGANIZATIONS

(a) OVERSIGHT AND CONSULTATION - The

Secretary concerned shall -

(1) inform, and consult and

coordinate with, the Special Representative with respect to

international standards-related

activities identified under paragraph (2) ;

(2) keep adequately informed regarding international standards-related

activities and identify those that

may substantially affect the com- merce of the United States; and

45
(3) carry out such functions as are required under subsections (b) and

(c).

(b) REPRESENTATION OF UNITED STATES

INTERESTS BY PRIVATE PERSONS -

(1) DEFINITIONS - For purposes of

this subsection -

(A) ORGANIZATION MEMBER - The

term "organization member" means

the private person who holds

membership in a private international standards organization.

(B) PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL

STANDARDS ORGANIZATION - The

term "private international standards organization" means any

international standards organization before which the

interests of the United States are represented by a private

person who is officially rec- ognized by that organization

for such purpose.

(2) IN GENERAL - Except as otherwise

provided for in this subsection, the

representation of United States interests before any private international standards organization shall

be carried out by the organization

member.

(3) INADEQUATE REPRESENTATION - If

the Secretary concerned, after inquiry instituted on his own motion

or at the request of any private

person, Federal agency, or State

agency having an interest therein,

has reason to believe that the

participation by the organization

member in the proceedings of a private international standards

organization will not result in the

adequate representation of United

States interests that are, or may

be, affected by the activities of

such organization (particularly with

regard to the potential impact of

any such activity on the international trade of the United States)

,

the Secretary concerned shall

immediately notify the organization

member concerned.

During any such inquiry, the Secretary

concerned may solicit and consider the

advice of the appropriate representatives referred to in section 417.

(4) ACTION BY ORGANIZATION MEMBER - If

within the 90-day period the date on which notification is received under

paragraph (3) (or such shorter period

as the Secretary concerned determines

to be necessary in extraordinary circumstances) , the organization member

demonstrates to the Secretary concerned

its willingness and ability to represent adequately United States interests

before the private international standards organization, the Secretary

concerned shall take no further action

under this subsection.

(5) ACTION BY SECRETARY CONCERNED - If -

(A) within the appropriate period

referred to in paragraph (4) , the

organization member does not re- spond to the Secretary concerned

with respect to the notification, or does respond but does not demonstrate to the Secretary concerned

the requisite willingness and

ability to represent adequately

United States interests; or

(B) there is no organization member

of the private international standards organization;

the Secretary concerned shall make

appropriate arrangements to provide for

the adequate representation of United

States interests. In cases where subparagraph (A) applies, such provisions

shall be made by the Secretary concerned

through the appropriate organization

member if the private international

standards organization involved requires

representation by that member.

(c) REPRESENTATION OF UNITED STATES

INTERESTS BY FEDERAL AGENCIES - With respect to any international standards organization before which the

interests of the United States are re- presented by one or more Federal

agencies that are officially recognized

by that organization for such purpose,

the Secretary concerned shall -

46
(1) encourage cooperation among

interested Federal agencies with a view

toward facilitating the development of

a uniform position with respect to the

technical activities with which the

organization is concerned;

(2) encourage such Federal agencies to

seek information from, and to cooperate

with, the affected domestic interests

when undertaking such representation;

and

(3) not preempt the responsibilities of

any Federal agency that has jurisdiction

with respect to the activities undertaken by such organization, unless

requested to do so by such agency.

SEC. 4 14. STANDARDS INFORMATION CENTER

(a) ESTABLISHMENT - The Secretary of

Commerce shall maintain within the Department of Commerce a standards

information center.

(b) FUNCTIONS - The standards information

center shall -

(1) serve as the central national

collection facility for information

relating to standards, certification

systems, and standards-related activities, whether such standards,

systems, or activities are public or

private, domestic or foreign, or

international, regional, national, or local;

(2) make available to the public at

such reasonable fee as the Secretary

shall prescribe, copies of information required to be collected under

paragraph (1) other than information

to which paragraph (3) applies;

(3) use its best efforts to make

available to the public, at such

reasonable fees as the Secretary

shall prescribe, copies of information required to be collected under

paragraph (1) that is of private

origin, on a cooperative basis with

the private individual or entity,

foreign or domestic, who holds the

copyright on the information;

(4) in case of such information that

is of foreign origin, provide, at such

reasonable fee as the Secretary shall

prescribe, such translation services

as may be necessary;

(5) serve as the inquiry point for

requests for information regarding

standards-related activities, whether

adopted or proposed, within the United

States, except that in carrying out this

paragraph, the Secretary of Commerce

shall refer all inquiries regarding agricultural products to the technical

office established under section 412

(a) (2) within the Department of Agriculture; and

(6) provide such other services as may

be appropriate, including but not

limited to, such services to the technical offices established under section

412 as may be requested by those in

carrying out their functions.

SEC. 415 . CONTRACTS AND GRANTS

(a) IN GENERAL - For purposes of

carrying out this title, and otherwise

encouraging compliance with the Agreement, the Special Representative and

the Secretary concerned may each, with

respect to functions for which responsible under this title, make grants to, or enter into contracts with, any other

Federal agency, any State agency, or

any private person, to assist such

agency or person to implement appropriate programs and activities,

including, but not limited to, programs

and activities -

(1) to increase awareness of proposed

and adopted standards-related

activities

;

(2) to facilitate international trade

through the appropriate international

and domestic standards-related

activities

;

(3) to provide, if appropriate, and

pursuant to section 413, adequate

United States representation in international standards-related activities;

and

47
(4) to encourage United States

exports through increased awareness of foreign standards-related activities that may affect United States

exports. No contract entered into

under this section shall be effective

except to such extent, and in such

amount, as is provided in advance in

appropriation Acts.

(b) TERMS AND CONDITIONS - Any contract

entered into, or any grant made, under

subsection (a) shall be subject to such

terms and conditions as the Special

Representative of Secretary concerned

shall by regulation prescribe as being

necessary or appropriate to protect the

interests of the United States.

(c) LIMITATIONS - Financial assistance

extended under this section shall not

exceed 75 percent of the total costs (as

established by the Special Representative or Secretary concerned, as the case may be) of the program or activity for

which assistance is made available. The

non-Federal share of such costs shall be

made in cash or kind, consistent with the

maintenance of the program or activity

concerned.

(d) AUDIT - Each recepient of a grant

or contract under this section shall

make available to the Special Representative or the Secretary concerned, as the case may be, and to the Comptroller

General of the United States, for purposes of audit and examination, any book,

document, paper and record that is pertinent to the funds received under such

grant or contract.

SEC. 4 16. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE

The Special Representative and the Secretary

concerned may each, with respect to functions for which responsible under this title,

make available, on a reimbursable basis or

otherwise, to any other Federal agency,

State agency, or private person such assistance, including, but not limited to,

employees, services, and facilities, as may

be appropriate to assist such agency or person in carrying out standards-related

activities in a manner consistent with this

title.

SEC. 4 17. CONSULTATIONS WITH REPRESENTATIVES

OF DOMESTIC INTERESTS

In carrying out the functions for which

responsible under this title, the Special

Representative and the Secretary concerned

shall solicit technical and policy advice

from the committees, established under

section 135 of the Trade Act of 1974 (19

U.S.C. 2155) , that represent the interests

concerned, and may solicit advice from

appropriate State agencies and private persons.

Subtitle C - ADMINISTRATIVE AND JUDICIAL

PROCEEDINGS REGARDING STANDARDS-RELATED

ACTIVITIES

CHAPTER 1 - REPRESENTATIONS ALLEGING

UNITED STATES VIOLATIONS OF OBLIGATIONS

SEC. 421. RIGHT OF ACTION UNDER THIS

CHAPTER

Except as provided under this chapter, the

provisions of this subtitle do not create

any right of action under the laws of the

United States with respect to allegations

that any standards-related activity engaged

in within the United States violates the

obligations of the United States under the

Agreement.

SEC . 422 . REPRESENTATIONS

Any -

(1) Party to the Agreement; or

(2) foreign country that is not a Party to the Agreement but is found

by the Special Representative to

extend rights and privileges to the

United States that are substantially

the same as those that would be so extended if that foreign country were

a Party to the Agreement;

may make a representation to the Special

Representative alleging that a standardsrelated activity engaged in within the

United States violates the obligations of

the United States under the Agreement.

Any such representation must be made in

accordance with procedures that the Special

Representative shall by regulation

48
prescribe and must provide a reasonable

indication that the standards-related

activity concerned is having a significant

trade effect. No person other than a Party to the Agreement or a foreign country described in paragraph (2) may make

such a representation.

SEC. 423.ACTION AFTER RECEIPT OF

REPRESENTATIONS

(a) REVIEW - Upon receipt of any representation made under section 422, the

Special Representative shall review the

issues concerned in consultation with -

(1) the agency or person alleged to

be engaging in violations under the

Agreement;

(2) the member agencies of the interagency trade organization established

under section 242(a) of the Trade

Expansion Act of 1962 (19 U.S.C.

1872 (a) )

;

(3) other appropriate Federal

agencies; and

(4) appropriate representatives

referred to in section 417.

(b) RESOLUTION - The Special Representative shall undertake to resolve, on a mutually satisfactory basis, the issues

set forth in the representation through

consultation with the parties concerned.

SEC. 424. PROCEDURE AFTER FINDING BY

INTERNATIONAL FORUM

(a) IN GENERAL - If an appropriate

international forum finds that a standards-related activity being engaged in

within the United States conflicts with

the obligations of the United States

under the Agreement, the interagency

trade organization established under

section 242(a) of the Trade Expansion

Act of 1962 (19 U.S.C. 1872(a)) shall

review the finding and the matters re- lated thereto with a view to

reccrrmending appropriate action.

(b) CROSS REFERENCE - For provisions

of law regarding remedies available to

domestic persons alleging that standards activities engaged in by Parties

to the Agreement (other than the

United States) violate the obligations

of the Agreement, see section 301 of

the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2411)

.

CHAPTER 2 - OTHER PROCEEDINGS REGARDING

CERTAIN STANDARDS-RELATED ACTIVITIES

SEC. 441. FINDINGS OF RECIPROCITY REQUIRED

IN ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS

(a) IN GENERAL - Except as provided

under chapter 1, no Federal agency may

consider a complaint or petition

against any standards-related activity

regarding an imported product, if that

activity is engaged in within the

United States and is covered by the

Agreement, unless the Special Representative finds, and informs the agency

concerned in writing that -

(1) the country of origin of the

imported product is a Party to the

Agreement or a foreign country described in section 422 (2) ; and

(2) the dispute settlement procedures

provided under the Agreement are not

appropriate.

(b) EXEMPTIONS - This section does not

apply with respect to causes of action

arising under -

(1) the antitrust laws as defined in

subsection (a) of the first section

of the Clayton Act (15 U.S.C. 12(a)); or

(2) statutes administered by the

Secretary of Agriculture.

This section does not apply with respect

to petitions and proceedings that are provided for under the practices of any

Federal agency for the purpose of ensuring

in accordance with section 553 of title

5, United States Code, that interested

49
persons are given an opportunity to

participate in agency rulemaking or to seek

the issuance,* amendment, or repeal of a

rule.

SEC. 442. NOT. CAUSE FOR STAY IN CERTAIN

CIRCUMSTANCES.

No standards-related activity being engaged

in within the United States may be stayed

in any judicial or administrative proceeding on the basis that such activity is

currently being considered, pursuant to the

Agreement, by an international forum.

Subtitle D - DEFINITIONS AND MISCEIIANEOUS

PROVISIONS

SEC . 451 . DEFINITIONS

As used in this title -

(1) AGREEMENT - The term "Agreement" means the Agreement on Technical

Barriers to Trade approved under section

2(a) of this Act.

(2) CERTIFICATION SYSTEM - The term

"certification system" means a system -

(A) for determining whether a product

forms with product standards applicable to that product; and

(B) if a product so conforms, for

attesting, by means of a document,

mark, or other appropriate evidence

of conformity, to that conformity.

Such terms also includes any modification

of, or charge to, any such system.

(3) FEDERAL AGENCY - The term "Federal

agency" means any of the following within the meaning of chapter 2 of part I of title 5, United States Code:

(A) Any executive department.

(B) Any military department.

(C) Any Government corporation.

(D) Any Government-controlled

corporation.

(E) Any independent establishment.

(4) INTERNATIONAL CERTIFICATION

SYSTEM - The term "international certification system" means a certification

system that is adopted by an international standards organization.

(5) INTERNATIONAL STANDARD - The term

"international standard" means any standard that is promulgated by an international standards organization.

(6) INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS ORGANIZATION - The term "international

standards organization" means any

organization -

(A) the membership of which is open

to representatives, whether public

or private, of the United States

and -

(i) all Parties to the Agreement, or

(ii) some but not all Parties of

the Agreement; and

(B) that is engaged in international

standards-related activities.

(7) INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS-RELATED

ACTIVITY - The term "international

standards-related activity" means the

negotiation, development, or promulgation of, or any amendment or change to, an international standard, or an international certification system, or both.

(8) PARTY TO THE AGREEMENT - The term

"Party to the Agreement" means any

foreign country or instrumentality

determined by the President to have

assumed, and to be applying, the obligations of the Agreement with respect

to the United States.

(9) PRIVATE PERSON - The term "private

person" means -

(A) any individual who is a citizen or national of the United States; and

50
(B) any corporation, partnership,

association, or other legal entity

organized or existing under the law

of any State, whether for profit or not for profit.

(10) PRODUCT - The term "product" means

any natural or manufactured item.

(11) SECRETARY CONCERNED - The term

"Secretary concerned" means the Secretary of Commerce with respect to

functions under this title relating to

nonagricultural products, and the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to

functions under this title relating to

agricultural products.

(12) SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE - The term

"Special Representative" means the Special Representative for Trade

Negotiations.

(13) STANDARD - The term "standard" means any of the following, and any

amendment or change to any of the

following

(A) The specification of the characteristics of a product, including,

but not limited to, levels of quality,

performance, safety, or dimensions.

(B) Specifications relating to the

terminology, symbols, testing and

test methods, packaging, or marking

or labeling requirements applicable

to a product.

(C) Administrative procedures related

to the application of any specification referred to in paragraph (A) or

(B).

(14) STANDARDS-RELATED ACTIVITY - The

term " standards-related activity" means

the development, adoption, or application of any standard or any certification

system.

(15) STATE - The term "State" means any

of the several States, the District of

Columbia, the (Commonwealth of Puerto

Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa,

Guam and other Carmonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States.

(16) STATE AGENCY - The term "State

agency" means any department , agency, or other instrumentality of the government of any State or of any political

subdivision of any State.

(17) UNITED STATES - The term "United

States", when used in geographical

context, means all States.

SEC. 452. EXEMPTIONS UNDER TITLE

This title does not apply to -

(1) any standards activity engaged in by

any Federal agency or State agency for

the use (including, but not limited to, use with respect to research and development, production, or consumption) of

that agency or the use of another such

agency; or

(2) any standards activity engaged in by

any private person solely for use in

the production or consumption of products by that person.

SEC. 453. REPORTS TO CONGRESS ON OPERATION OF

AGREEMENT

As soon as practicable after the close

of the 3-year period beginning on the date on which this title takes effect, and as soon as practicable after the close of each

succeeding 3-year period, the Special Representative shall prepare and submit to

Congress a report containing an evaluation

of the operation of the Agreement, both

domestically and internationally, during

the period.

SEC. 454. EFFECTIVE DATE

This title shall take effect on

January 1, 1980, if the Agreement enters

into force with respect to the United

States by that date.

51

APPENDIX B

ISONET Constitution

Second Edition

ISO is the specialized international

agency for standardization, comprising the

national standards bodies of nearly 90

countries. The object of ISO is to promote the development of standards in the

world with a view to facilitating international exchange of goods and services,

and to developing mutual cooperation in

the sphere of intellectual, scientific,

technological and economical activity.

ISO brings together the interests of

producers, users (including consumers),

governments and the scientific community,

in the preparation of International Standards.

The decision to create an ISO Information

Network, ISONET, was taken in order to

coordinate and systematize the exchange of

information on standards and standardtype documents, both internationally and

nationally, by linking the information

centres of the ISO members and the Information Centre of the Central Secretariat

into a coherent information system.

The present ISONET Constitution was

approved by the ISO Council in September

1979. Together with the conditions of

participation, it gives the basic guidelines for the organization and

functioning of ISONET.

1 Title

The name of the network shall be the ISO

Information Network hereinafter referred

to by the abbreviated title ISONET.

2 Objectives

The objectives of ISONET shall be

- to promote closer cooperation among

its members on questions of information

- to aid the transfer of technology for

development

- to encourage coordination on

standardization and implementation

of standards

by promoting the flow of information on

standards, technical regulations and

related matters.

3 Membership

3.1 Members of ISONET shall be bodies com- petent to contribute to the flow of

information on standardization which have

agreed to abide by the provisions of the

present Constitution.

3.2 Each ISONET member shall belong to

one of three categories: national members,

associate members and international

affiliates.

3.3 A national member of ISONET is, subject to 3.6, an ISO member body which has

asked to be registered as a member of

ISONET. The request for registration

should be addressed to the Secretary

General of ISO.

3.4 Any ISO member body not itself wishing

to become a member of ISONET may either

appoint one body, and one body alone, from

its country as the national member of

ISONET or ask to be linked with a neighbouring national member, the latter

member thus acquiring regional competence.

3.5 An associate member of ISONET is,

subject to 3.6, any national body in a given country nominated by the national

member of ISONET. These associate members shall expressly state willingness to

abide by the present Constitution. The

national member shall provide the Secretary General with a brief statement

concerning the subject and territorial

coverage and the services offered in the

framework of ISONET in respect of each

such associate member. In a given territory they, together with the national

member, constitute a sub-network with re- spect to ISONET.

3.6 Admission of bodies as national members or associate members in countries

where there is no ISO member body shall

require the decision of ISO Council. The

ISO Secretary General shall immediately

submit such applications to Council.

53
3.7 An International affiliate is an

international organization which has

joined ISONET by invitation of the Secretary General of ISO, following the

decision of ISO Council.

3.8 The Central Secretariat shall immediately inform all members of the new

admissions to ISONET.

3.9 In certain specific cases members

may, in addition to their territorial

competence, perform a specialized function

within ISONET, such as:

3.9.1 Management of certain instruments

used by ISONET (the language agencies

for the Thesaurus, maintaining the indexing manual. . .) or coordination of

exchange operations;

3.9.2 Data processing with a view to

interconnection of manual systems with

automated systems;

3.9.3 Processing of documents or enquiries coming from countries not represented

in ISONET; collecting and processing of

certain types of documents on behalf of

other members of the Network;

3.9.4 Compilation, through exchanges, of

exhaustive documentation on the international documents of the various countries

for a given subject or group of subjects;

3.9.5 Providing of certain services or

lending of special assistance;

3.9.6 Such specialized functions shall be

clearly defined, authorized by INFCO and

recognized by the overall ISONET membership. In no case may a specialized

function become an obstruction to the flow

of information, cause unnecessary duplication of work, interfere with the

territorial competence of the other members, or create a monopoly at the

utilization level. The services provided

shall be readily available to all ISONET

members. Activities which cannot meet

these requirements shall be regarded as outside the scope of ISONET. The special

guidelines applying to such functions

shall be compatible with the guidelines

applying to all members.

4 Structure

4.1 Subject to the overall authority of

ISO Council, the general policy for ISONET

shall be determined by the ISO Standing

Committee for the study of scientific and

technical information on standardization

(hereinafter referred to by the abbreviated title of INFCO) , the membership of

which shall be regarded as constituting

the general assembly of ISONET.

4.2 National members of ISONET shall

constitute the participating membership

of INFCO while associate members, international affiliates and ISO member bodies

which are not members of ISONET may

participate in the work of INFCO as observers

.

4.3 The chief executive organ of ISONET

shall be an ISONET Management Board.

4.4 The ISONET Management Board shall consist of not more than nine persons and a

chairman appointed by INFCO subject to

confirmation by ISO Council. The chair- man of INFCO shall be entitled to attend

all meetings. The board shall be responsible for administrative, procedural and

accounting matters and for the implementation of policy decisions. It may set

up commissions of inquiry to handle any

disputes between members.

4.5 The INFCO working groups shall act as technical advisory bodies to ISONET

through INFCO.

4.6 The ISO Central Secretariat shall

provide secretariat services for ISONET

and its organs.

5 Rights and Obligations

5.1 The national members of ISONET shall

each act as reference point for other

ISONET members for information on standards, technical regulations and related

matters in their own territory. The

Information Centre of the ISO Central Secretary shall act as a reference point for

information on standards, technical regulations and related matters of an

international nature.

5.2 Each member of ISONET may refer to any

other member any enquiry within the territorial or functional competence of the

latter member, ISONET members shall take

all reasonable steps to answer such

enquiries

.

54
5.3 Each national member shall also act as a referral centre for enquiries within its

territorial competence . For this purpose

it shall establish appropriate contacts

with other scientific and technical information centres operating in its territory.

5.4 Members shall respect any guidelines

for their operations which may be adopted

by ISONET.

5.5 ISONET members shall make the services

offered by ISONET known throughout their

territory and shall assure the success of

the network by taking an active part in the

various activities organized by ISONET, by

INFCO or its working groups.

5.6 ISONET members shall undertake to provide one another with mutual assistance in

matters related to the services rendered in

accordance with this aqreement, in particular in relation to technical advice on

systems operation and training.

6 Finance

6.1 The secretariat services for ISONET

operations shall be financed through ISO

Central Secretariat budget.

6.2 Each ISONET member shall be free to

determine the modalities and amounts of

any payments it requires for services

rendered within its own territory.

6.3 INFCO shall establish rules for the

renumeration of services rendered to other

ISONET members.

6.4 Nothing in this constitution shall preclude ISONET members from deciding not to

charge for services rendered.

7 Withdrawal

7.1 Any ISONET member may withdraw from

membership by giving three months' notice

to the ISO Secretary General, who will

thereupon inform all other ISONET members.

7.2 Consistent failure by an ISONET

member to fulfill the obligations of this

Constitution may be reported by INFCO to

ISO Council, which may decide to exclude

that body from membership in ISONET.

Conditions for Participation in ISONET as a National Member

1 Principles and Procedures

The principles governing membership of

ISONET are stated in the ISONET Constitution. The present document establishes

operational procedures which take account

of the wide differences between standards

information centres as regards roles,

responsibilities, level of development, resources and information requirements.

For this purpose, three types of participation are defined below as references to

allow each national member of ISONET to

determine the terms of its own membership.

Each national member of ISONET is required

to indicate to the ISONET secretariat its

type of membership which should correspond

to its present information capability.

This declaration is regarded as part of

the registration procedure , and the information will be included in an ISONET

Directory to be published annually.

Members may elect to change their type of

membership by notifying the ISONET

secretariat.

It is recognized that ISONET members provide information services to their users

and to other ISONET members in various

forms and media. Those members wishing to

participate in the creation and management

of consolidated bibliographic data files

should plan for eventual ISONET participation as type 2 or type 3 members.

Nothing in the present document should be

taken as overrulinq existing agreements

with ISO for the exchange of documents.

55
2 Basic Conditions for Participation in

ISONET

All national members of ISONET are regarded

as full participants , whichever type of

participation they have chosen. There are,

however, certain basic minimum requirements

for participation in ISONET as a national

member, as follows:

2.1 A national member of ISONET undertakes

to abide by the ISONET Constitution.

2.2 A national member of ISONET undertakes

to accept willingly enquiries from other

national members of ISONET regarding standards and technical regulations in force

in the country of that member, giving

either a direct answer or diligent assistance. Such enquiries should be answered or at least acknowledged by telex or cable

when so received.

2.3 A national member of ISONET will do

its best to see that an answer is sent to

any enquiry received by that member either

from within the country or outside. It is

not sufficient for that member merely to

forward the enquiry to someone else. An

ISONET member receivinq an enquiry may refer it to another centre but remains

responsible for the enouiry until appropriate follow-up action has been taken on

it.

2.4 If a national member of ISONET uses

or accepts the use of indexing systems

other than that elaborated by INFCO for the

documents effective in its territory, it

shall, subject to reciprocity, provide information and assistance relating to the

use and operation of such systems to other

national members.

2.5 A member of ISONET is invited to

charge amounts in payment for services

rendered to another member of ISONET which

do not substantially differ from those it

has fixed under article 6.2 of the Constitution, unless that member decides to apply

the provisions of article 6.4 spontaneously or by bi- or multilateral agreement.

3 Membership Type 1

A national member of ISONET may choose

membership type 1 when the following

conditions have been met:

3.1 An information activity has been

established to enable enquiries on standards, technical regulations and similar

documents to be answered as required under

the basic conditions for participation in

ISONET.

It is expected that a member of ISONET

should be able to identify directly standards for a product or service and to help

to identify technical regulations and

similar documents for such a product or

service.

3.2 A list has been prepared in English

and/or French of the titles of standards

published by the ISO member represented,

taking account of guidelines recortmended

by ISO for lists of this nature.

3.3 Arrangements exist to update the list

at least once a year.

3.4 If conditions 3.2 and 3.3 cannot be

met immediately an undertaking to meet

these conditions within two years of the

date of registration as a member of ISONET

would be acceptable.

3.5 The lists and services should be made

available to any other ISONET member re- questing them, subject to reciprocity.

4 Membership Type 2

To choose membership type 2, in addition to

the requirements for type 1, a national

member of ISONET should have prepared

bibliographic descriptions, in accordance

with the ISONET Manual, of all standards

published by the ISO member body (or

correspondent member) represented. Record of each document should include a

bibliographic description comprising at

56
least the mandatory elements defined in

part 1.1 of the ISCNET Manual and a description of the technical content using

the ISCNET Thesaurus. The member should

have a regular routine for keeping this

information up-to-date.

The file should be available preferably in

machine readable form, to any member of

ISCNET requesting it, subject to reciprocity.

5 Membership Type 3

To choose membership type 3, a national

member of ISCNET should have prepared

bibliographic descriptions of standards,

technical regulations and similar documents

which are operative in the country con- cerned and which have an importance to the

international exchange of goods, services or information, whether or not these documents are published by the ISO member body

or correspondent member.

The record of each document should include

a bibliographic description prepared in

accordance with the ISCNET Manual and a description of the technical content using

the ISCNET Thesaurus. The member should

have a regular routine for keeping this

information up-to-date.

The file should be available, preferably in

machine readable form, to any other member

of ISCNET requesting it, subject to reciprocity.

6 Reciprocity

Any national member of ISCNET providing

services to another member may expect to

receive in return a fair level of equivalent services, due consideration being

given to the type of membership taken out

by its correspondent. If a member feels

that the exchanges requested by another

member are unbalanced owing for instance to

dispartities in the volume, the adequacy or

the convenience of use of the information

interchanged, a proper balance may be

sought through bilateral agreement. Should

there be persistent diagreement, one or

another of the parties may request the good

offices of the Management Board.

7 Delegation of Duties

A national member of ISCNET may delegate a part of its tasks to one or, exceptionally, more associate members, subject to a statement by the national member explaining how

the conditions of Article 2 will be met

and it being understood that the national

member remains responsible before ISCNET

for ensuring that these obligations are

actually carried out.

Conditions for Participation in ISCNET as an Associate Member

1 Principles

The principles governing membership of

ISCNET are stated in the ISCNET Constitution. The present document establishes

guidelines for the nomination by national

members of ISCNET of certain national

bodies as associate members.

The purpose of ISCNET is to promote the

flow of information on standards, technical specifications and related matters.

Hence nothing in the present document

should be taken as overruling, or interfering with arrangements which may already

exist for the exchange of documents or

information, whether or not such exchanges

take place within the framework of ISCNET.

2 Conditions

An associate member of ISCNET is a national

body which has been so nominated by the

national member of ISCNET of the country

concerned.

An associate member acts under the

sponorship of the national member of ISCNET

and actions taken by an associate member

within the framework of ISCNET remain the

responsibility of the national member.

57
3 Privileges

An associate member will enjoy such

privileges as may be determined by the

national member of ISONET for the country

concerned. Any costs involved in according such privileges shall be met at

national level.

Conditions for Participation in ISONET

as an International Affiliate

1 Principles

The principles governing membership of

ISONET are stated in the ISONET Constitution. The present document establishes

guidelines for the admission of international and regional bodies to ISONET as international affiliates.

The purpose of ISONET is to promote the

flow of information on standards, technical

specifications and related matters.

Hence nothing in the present document

should be taken as overruling, or interfering with arrangements which may already

exist for the exchange of documents or

information, whether or not such exchanges

take place within the framework of ISONET.

2 Definitions

The following definitions were taken from

ISO Guide 2-1978;

international standards organization: An

organization, governmental or non-governmental, whose membership is open to all

countries of the world and whose principal

function, by virtue of its statutes, is

the preparation and/or publication of standards and/or harmonization of the standards

of its members.

regional standards organization: An

organization, governmental or non-governmental, whose membership is usually

limited to certain countries from a given

region of the world and whose principal

function, by virtue of its statutes, is

the preparation and/or publication of

standards, and/or the harmonization of the

standards of its members.

standardizing bodies: A body, governmental or non-governmental, one of whose

recognized activities is in the field of

standardization

.

regional standardizing body: A standardizing body whose membership is usually

limited to certain countries from a given

region of the world.

3 Conditions

An international affiliate is an international organization which has joined

ISONET by invitation of the SecretaryGeneral of ISO following the decision of

ISO Council, Eligibility for membership of

ISONET as an international affiliate is

determined by the requirements stated

below.

3.1 The organization shall be a regional

standards organization, an international

standardizing body or a regional standardizing body, as defined above.

3.2 To qualify as an international

affiliate, a regional standards organization shall have a regular working

relationship with ISO, establ.i «h*=d in

accordance with ISO Council resolution

5/1972.

3.3 If it is an international standardizing body, the organization shall be in

category A liaison, as defined in ISO

Directives, with at least one ISO technical committee or sub-committee

.

3.4 The organization shall agree to abide

by the terms of the ISONET Constitution.

3.5 The organization shall agree to assist

the ISO Information Centre in ensuring the

inclusion of all suitable documents which

it publishes in a register of international normative documents and in keeping

the register up-to-date.

3.6 The organization shall agree to the

exploitation of the register referred to

in 3.5, by the publication of bibliographies and indexes, the provision of

services of selective dissemination of

information or any other methods which

may be decided upon to promote the flow of

information about the documents.

58
4 Privileges

4.1 An international affiliate will

receive copies of all INFCO documents and an invitation to attend all INFCO meetings.

4.2 An international affiliate which

operates an indexing or abstracting ser- vice in a given field of science or

technology as a service to its members or

to the public, is entitled to receive for

inclusion free copies in English and/or

French of all ISO publications relating

to that field, or alternatively the ISO

Catalogue and special lists where these

are sufficient for the purpose.

4.3 An international affiliate may call

upon the ISONET Secretariat for assistance in identifying international and/or

national standards or technical regulations relating to its specific field of

interest.

4.4 An international affiliate may

receive a copy of any published product of the register referred to in 3.5

and 3.6 above, either free or at cost, as may be determined by INFCO.
NBS-114A (REV. 9-78)

U.S. DEPT. OF COMM. BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA

SHEET

1. PUBLICATION OR REPORT NO.

NBS SP 579

j tJ»ev*t A&sessi&n No.

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Symposium on International Standards Information and ISONET

5. Publication Date June 1980

6. Perfen$s&ttg CiffanJasation Code —-

7. AUTHOR(S)

Charles B. Phucas, Editor

8. Performing Organ. Report No.

16. Project/Task/Work Unit No.

"" » 9. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME AND ADDRESS

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

WASHINGTON, DC 20234

11. Contract/Grant No.

12. SPONSORING ORGANIZATION NAME AND COMPLETE ADDRESS (Street, City, state, ZIP)

ANSI

1430 Broadway

New York, N.Y. 10018

13. Type of Report & Period Covered

Final

14. 'Ij^ns^rtag #gs»ey Code

15. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-600073

I

| Document describes a computer program; SF-185, FiPS Software Summary, is attached.

16. ABSTRACT (A 200-word or less (actual summary oi most significant information. If document includes a significant bibliography or

literature survey, mention it here.)

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and NBS have been working cooperative

ly with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to provide United

States input to the development of an International Standards Information Network

called ISONET. Symposium participants had an opportunity to learn more about existing

international standards information systems as well as the plans for the further

development of ISONET. Through question and answer discussions, participants were

able to learn about new developments in U.S. trade policy, especially those policies

pertaining to standards and certification systems.

17. KEY WORDS (six to twelve entries; alphabetical order; capitalize only the first letter of the first key word unless a proper name;

separated by semicolons)

ISO; ISONET symposium; proceedings; standards information

18. AVAILABILITY [XI Unlimited

I I For Official Distribution. Do Not Release to NTIS

lx Order From Sup. of Doc, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington,

DC 20402

Order From National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, VA. 22161

19. SECURITY CLASS

(THIS REPORT)

UNCLASSIFIED

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21. NO. OF

PRINTED PAGES

61

22. Price

$3.50

tr U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFICE : 1980 O-3U-046 U23J 1 2W
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