IFAN in brief
Background
The International Federation of Standards Users is an independent, non profit-making international association of national organizations for the application of standards, companies, professional and trade associations, and governmental agencies, concerned with the use of standards.
It was founded in 1974 when eleven national standards organizations met in Paris for an International Conference.
Objectives
The objectives of IFAN, inter alia, include:
- To promote uniform implementation of standards without deviation and develop solutions to standards users’ problems without itself drawing up standards;
- To consolidate standards users’ interests and views on all aspects of standardization and conformity assessment, and to cooperate with international and regional standardizing bodies (e.g. ISO, IEC, ITU, CEN, CENELEC, COPANT, etc.) in order to communicate user views to these organizations;
- To promote networking in the field of international standardization and conformity assessment.
Membership
IFAN is open to five categories of members: national, corporate, developing national, prospective corporate and associate members. The national members are national standards user bodies; the corporate members are any companies, professional and trade associations, governmental agencies, which deal with the use of standards; developing national members are national standards user bodies with limited economic resources; prospective corporate members are any companies, professional and trade associations, governmental agencies that deal with the use of standards and participate in IFAN activities with a view to becoming corporate members; and associate members are individuals who may, on account of their standards professional knowledge and expertise, participate in the work of IFAN as individual experts.
A list of IFAN members is given in the section "IFAN Members".
Structure of IFAN
The structure of IFAN includes the Members' Assembly, the Board, working and project groups, and the Secretariat. The governing bodies are the Members' Assembly and the Board. A description of the structure is given in the section "Structure of IFAN".
IFAN Board
Currently, the composition of the IFAN Board is as follows:
President:
Mr. Ross Wraight
Executive Chairman
Grove Research and Advisory
Immediate Past President:
Mr. Neil Reeve
Shell Technical Standards Manager
Shell Global Solutions International B.V.
Vice-President:
Ms. Andrea F.M. Beddard
Chair
British Standards Society
Vice-President:
Mr. David Felinski
Safety Director
The Association For Manufacturing Technology (AMT)
Treasurer:
Mr. Thomas Laemmle
Coordination Standardization Activities
Daimler AG
Member of the Board
Mr. William E. Anderson
Electrical Engineer
Procter and Gamble Company
Member of the Board
Mr. Xavier Delecroix
Centre de Veille Normative (CVN)
du Centre de Recherche Public (CRP) Henri
Tudor
Member of the Board
Ms. Isabelle Heller
General Manager
Union Technique de l'Electricité
Member of the Board
Ms. Vered Oren
President
Israeli Standards Users Society (ISUS)
Secretary:
Ms. Linda Zaech
Executive Assistant to the Deputy Secretary-General
ISO Central Secretariat
The Officers of IFAN are a President, two Vice-Presidents, a Treasurer and a Secretary.
IFAN International Conference
IFAN holds an International Conference once every three years, in conjunction with the Members' Assembly. This conference, open to all persons interested in the programme, is generally focused on issues of standardization and related matters. The last (12th) IFAN International Conference was held in San Francisco in 2007.
Note: Detailed information on the IFAN organizational structure and working methods is given in the "IFAN Statutes and Rules of Procedure (pdf 89 kb)".