ISO Story

STORY OF ISO

ISO is the world largest standards developing organization. Between 1947 and the present day, ISO has published more than 18 500 International Standards, ranging from standards for activities such as agriculture and construction, through mechanical engineering, to medical devices, to the newest information technology developments.

Given the multi-sector scope of the organization, it would be hard to present a historical perspective summarizing the challenges, the passion, the outstanding achievements or, sometimes, the missed opportunities, in the large variety of sectors covered by ISO’s technical work.

We have therefore chosen to highlight the key markers in the history of the organization from a general perspective.

ISO is the world largest standards developing organization. Between 1947 and the present day, ISO has published more than 18 500 International Standards, ranging from standards for activities such as agriculture and construction, through mechanical engineering, to medical devices, to the newest information technology developments.

Given the multi-sector scope of the organization, it would be hard to present an historical perspective summarizing the challenges, the passion, the outstanding achievements or, sometimes, the missed opportunities, in the large variety of sectors covered by ISO’s technical work.

We have therefore chosen to highlight the key markers in the history of the organization from a general perspective.

Founding

ISO was born from the union of two organizations - the ISA (International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations),. established in New York in 1926, and the UNSCC (United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee), established in 1944.

In October 1946, delegates from 25 countries, meeting at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London, decided to create a new international organization, of which the object would be "to facilitate the international coordination and unification of industrial standards". The new organization, ISO, officially began operations on 23 February 1947.

"The essence of ISO's history is made up of the visions, aspirations, doubts, successes and failures of the people who, over the past fifty years, have created this rather remarkable organization."

From the foreword to Friendship Among Equals by Lawrence D. Eicher, former ISO Secretary-General (from 1986 until end of March 2002 when he passed away)

The book Friendship Among Equals published on the occasion of ISO's 50th anniversary in 1997, is a gathering of personal recollections of ISO's history from those who were deeply involved in shaping it during the first fifty years.

The early years

In April 1947, a meeting in Paris produced a recommended list of 67 ISO technical committees, about two-thirds of which were based on previous ISA committees. By the early 1950s, ISO technical committees were starting to produce what were known at the time as “Recommendations”.

The basic idea of postwar international standardization was to derive International Standards from those already developed nationally, and then to re-implement them nationally. ISO’s Recommendations were therefore only intended to influence existing national standards.

The first ISO General Assembly was organized in Paris in 1949. It was inaugurated at a public meeting held in the grand amphitheatre at the Sorbonne University.

As reported by Raymond Frontard, former Director-General of AFNOR, “a full house, including the President of the French Republic, Vincent Auriol, and the Director General of UNESCO, Jaime Torres-Bodet, listened to the speeches. Then came the translations (consecutive of course - simultaneous interpretation had yet to be invented). In English first, then in Russian …A quiver of curiosity run through the enormous assembly.

"Young people today find it difficult to imagine how far we were, at that time, from the global view that now seems so familiar. The earth was an archipelago of distinct worlds.”


Developing countries

In the course of the 1950s and 1960s, an increasing number of new ISO member bodies came from the developing world.

The International Standards developed by ISO are of high value to developing countries. They offer indeed practical solutions to a variety of issues related to international trade and technology transfer because they represent a reservoir of technological know-how and of product, performance, quality, safety and environmental specifications.

However, to take advantage of International Standards and to participate in their development, developing countries had to face substantial additional problems in comparison with industrialized nations, ranging from the lack of established industrial infrastructures and related technical components (including national standards, metrology and testing institutions and facilities), to the severe limitation of financial and technical resources.

The first landmark in ISO’s attempts to respond to the needs of these members was the establishment in 1961 of the DEVCO Committee on developing country matters (initiated on the basis of a memorandum to ISO Council from Mr. F. Hadass of Israel). Other initiatives followed. In 1967, a developing countries conference was held in Moscow and in1968 a new category of correspondent member was established, so that developing countries could play a role in ISO’s work without incurring the cost of full membership.

A further category of subscriber member was eventually added in 1992, allowing very small economies to maintain a link with ISO for a minimum fee.

Since the 1960s, the membership and role of developing countries within ISO has been continuously increasing. In parallel, the attention of the organization to the needs of developing countries has substantially evolved, along with the undertaking of programmes providing technical assistance and capacity building and a variety of initiatives to facilitate developing countries' participation in international standardization.


ISO International Standards

According to ISO’s first-ever Annual Review in 1972, the underlying causes of the acceleration of the pace of international standardization included “an explosive growth in international trade” caused by a “revolution in transportation methods”. By the mid-sixties a demand, not only a desire, for International Standards had developed. The sources of this demand included multinational companies, standards institutions in developing countries and government regulatory authorities.

What had laid the foundation for the growth of the output of ISO during the seventies was the turn in emphasis from national to International Standards which took place in the late 1960s.

This change of emphasis was underlined by the decision in 1971 to begin publishing the results of ISO’s technical work as International Standards rather then Recommendations.


The establishment of the GATT Standards Code

From 1948 to 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) provided the rules for much of world trade and presided over periods that saw some of the highest growth rates in international commerce.

In the early years, the GATT trade rounds concentrated on reducing tariffs. Then, the Kennedy Round in the mid-60s brought about a GATT Anti-Dumping Agreement and a section on development. The Tokyo Round during the 70s was the first major attempt to tackle trade barriers that do not take the form of tariffs, and to improve the system. The eighth, the Uruguay Round of 1986-94, was the last and most extensive of all. It led to the WTO (World Trade Organization) and a new set of agreements.

The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the so-called GATT Standards Code) introduced in 1979 aims at ensuring that regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade. The Agreement also sets out a code of good practice for both governments and non-governmental or industry bodies to prepare, adopt and apply voluntary standards.

ISO grasped immediately the importance of the GATT Standards Code and actively promoted the value of ISO’s International Standards to be used worldwide as instruments facilitating the elimination of unnecessary barriers to trade, and, whenever needed, as a suitable basis for technical regulations.

The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (now WTO TBT) was eventually amended in the Uruguay Round and turned into a multilateral commitment accepted by all WTO members.

Since 1979, ISO has taken the commitment and implemented all the necessary measures to ensure that ISO’s International Standards are fully compliant with the requirements set by the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade of the WTO.

Quality management standards

The vast majority of ISO’s International Standards were highly specific to a particular product, material, or process. However, during the 1980s, ISO entered into new areas of work, destined to have enormous impact on organizational practices and trade.

The history of industrialization has seen many standards dealing with quality issues.

A famous example concerns the military field: during the two world wars, a high percentage of bullets and bombs went off in the factories themselves in the course of manufacturing. In an effort to curb such causalities, the United Kingdom’s ministry of defense appointed inspectors in the factories to supervise the production process.

In the USA, quality standards for military procurement were introduced at the end of the 1950s. During the 1960s, NASA developed its quality system requirements for suppliers and NATO accepted the AQAP (allied quality assurance procedures) specifications for the procurement of equipment.

In the 1970s, many major organizations (private and governmental) published their own quality management standards, which introduced the idea that confidence in a product could be gained from an approved quality management system and quality manuals. The Canadian CSA Z 299 series of standards were issued in the mid-1970s and the British standard BS 5750 was issued in 1979. In December 1979, the USA issued ANSI/ASQC Z-1.15, Generic Guidelines for quality systems.

Whilst the increase in international trade stimulated the development of internationally-recognized quality management standards, it was feared that a variety of different national standards would be a barrier to international trade.

The ISO technical committee (TC) 176, Quality management and quality assurance, was therefore established in 1979. The first standard issued by ISO/TC 176 was ISO 8402 (in 1986), which standardized quality management terminology. It was followed in 1987 by ISO 9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003, which provided the requirements for quality management systems operated by organizations with varying scopes of activity, from those including an R&D function, to those uniquely carrying out service and maintenance., These standards were completed by ISO 9004, providing guidance on quality management systems..

This accomplishment marked the beginning of a long journey - with the ISO 9000 family of standards set to become the most widely known standards ever.

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