World Standards Day – ISO is 67 years today!

World Standards Day 2013

The World Standards Day (14th October) marks the birth of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) at the first inaugural meeting in London in 1946. The aim of World Standards Day is to raise awareness of the importance of international standards and the benefits they bring to the economy, the society and the technology worldwide. The theme of this year’s World Standards Day is “International standards ensure positive change”.
ISO is a network of national standards bodies (e.g. NSAI – Ireland, BSI – UK, ANSI – USA). Membership has grown from 25 to 164 member nations today. ISO develops voluntary standards within the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The current ISO library of standards now exceeds 19,500 standards detailed over 832,685 pages (December 2012). The ISO families of standard 9001 (Quality) and 14001 (Environmental) have led the standards growth. ISO 9001 certifications have grown exponentially over the past twenty years from 46,571 in 1993 to 1,101,272 in 2012. In second place is ISO 14001 with annual certifications growing from 13,994 in 1993 to 285,844 in 2012.

 

ISO Certifications

Number of certificates issued to management system standards worldwide in 2012
Source: The ISO Survey 2012 – http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_survey_executive-summary.pdf

The Benefits of Standardization:

Standards break down barriers to international trade by synchronizing technical specifications of products and services. International Standards also reassure customers about the quality, safety and reliability of products and services.

The main benefits are:

  • Reduced development time and cost
  • Enhanced customer satisfaction
  • Increased Revenue
  • Minimized waste
  • Reduced risk and increased quality of products and services

At  Almir Business, we have not read all 832,685 pages yet but we have read enough that puts us in a strong position to help you if your business has an ISO query. Please, feel free to contact us at +353 61 514598 or email at info@almir.biz.