Latest news

The Standards Engineering Society (SES) will hold its 58th Annual Conference in Toronto, Canada on 17–18 August 2009. This year’s conference theme is “Reaching For the Top– New Heights for Standards”. Mr. Rob Steele, Secretary-General, International Organization for Standardization (ISO), will be the keynote speaker at conference. The conference will explore the diversity of issues within the standards community and provide an expert panel of speakers on a wide range of topics. Please see the attached SES press release and the SES Web site for more information.

We are pleased to announce that Association pour la Promotion de la Métrologie et la Normalisation en République Démocratique du Congo (APROMEN) has joined IFAN as a developing national member. For the description of the organization, please see its Web site at www.apromenrdc.com. Contact details are available for IFAN members only.

IFAN holds an International Conference once every three years. The next conference will take place in Bali (Indonesia) on 21-22 October 2010. IFAN members and anyone wishing to participate in the conference are invited to reserve these dates in their agendas.

It will be hosted by the Standards Society of Indonesia (MASTAN) and the National Standardization Agency of Indonesia (BSN). The subject of the conference and its programme will be published on the IFAN Web site in due course.

IFAN is delighted to announce the election of Mr. Ross Wraight, an Australian, as its next President. Ross starts his three-year term of office on 1 January following the completion of a six-year term by Mr. Neil Reeve from Shell. Mr. Reeve, who stays on the IFAN Board, as Immediate Past President, said that Ross’s reforms and leadership in the standards world and elsewhere had been truly remarkable. He is very well-known in the industry and brings a very diverse background across financial, professional, health and industrial services to the role. He has been a CEO of several organizations and will bring a new perspective and energy to IFAN.

Ross has a strong background in standardization and conformity assessment and, in ISO, was the Chairman of the Technical Management Board and a member of Council. He was Group CEO of Standards Australia and CEO of SAI Global. For more information, please click here.

Messages from the in-coming and out-going Presidents are available through the below links:

- Message from Mr. Neil Reeve
- Message from Mr. Ross Wraight

The International Federation of Standards Users (IFAN) held its 35th Members’ Assembly in Geneva on 17 and 18 September 2008. Some 30 participants from ten countries attended, representing national members from standards user organizations and corporate members from both industrial and commercial sectors.

The first day’s open session included presentations from the International Organization for Standardization, the International Electrotechnical Commission and the International Telecommunication Union giving the highlights of recent developments and strategic planning within their organizations, with a view to the next generation of standards. Three separate groups participated in a brain-storming session focusing on identifying issues to be put forward to international standards developing organizations with regard to the next editions of their strategic plans. The results will be input to the development of agreed IFAN proposals.

The Members' Assembly considered the reports of the IFAN President and of working and project groups. The IFAN budget for 2009 was approved and new Board members were also elected at the meeting

The 2009 IFAN Members’ Assembly will be held in Berlin, Germany, hosted by the German Committee of Standards Users (ANP). The next triennial IFAN international conference, to be held in 2010 in conjunction with the 37th Members’ Assembly, will take place in Indonesia, kindly hosted by the national IFAN member, Masyarakat Standardisasi Indonesia (MASTAN), together with Badan Standardisasi Nasional (BSN).

CEN published a new document entitled Hands on standardization-A starters guide to standardization for experts in CEN technical bodies. This guide outlines, in a simplified way and with plain language, how the European standardization process works and what needs to be taken into account when drafting standards. This document may be useful, notably for the experts and observers that are participating in European standardization for the first time, but also for those standards users who need a short description of the CEN system.

To facilitate access to information on standards, regulations, accreditation and certification, IFAN has created a portal of links to the respective sources of information. Please see the "Search for" links in the left column of this page.

ISO has recently improved the search mechanism of the WSSN, World Standards Services Network. Previously, the WSSN search function was limited to information given on the site. The new search arrangement expanded the ability of searching information through all sites listed on the WSSN. The WSSN search is currently the only mechanism in the world which provides a search through Web sites of almost all international, regional and/or national standards bodies.

In August 2007, IFAN invited all persons wishing to express their artistic vision of the importance and benefits of standards and standardization to take part in the first IFAN international contest by preparing a poster depicting the theme "Standards make the world go round". 15 posters were received from 8 participants from Germany, Colombia, Botswana, China, France and Netherlands. The posters are available for viewing here.

At its meeting held in Geneva on 2-3 April 2008, the IFAN Board decided on the winners of the IFAN contest. The winners are:

1st place: Ms. Patricia Dind (Germany) for poster 1
2nd place: Ms. Dagmar Aben (Netherlands) for poster 15
3rd place: Mr. Luigi Principi (France) for poster 11

The IFAN Board expresses its gratitude and thanks to all participants in the contest for their time and efforts in preparing their pieces of art and congratulations to the winners.