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Faster standardization for fast-moving technical fields

2011-03-31

IEC significantly shortens voting time to speed up standards delivery

Geneva, Switzerland, 2011-03-18– The IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) announced today the decision to try cutting down the voting time for the enquiry stage of a standard, the CDV (Committee Draft for Vote), by nearly half, so as to accelerate the delivery of the final standard.

CDV is the last possible moment at which changes can still be made to the content of an International Standard. The CDV period currently runs for five months and during this time, a future standard can be made available for comments during a public enquiry stage. While overall standards development time has been significantly reduced over the years, to a large extent due to electronic document production and sharing, the CDV period was never reduced as some countries needed this time to efficiently consult with their industries and other stakeholders before submitting their final comments regarding a standard. However, with broad access to information technology, the IEC now feels that it may be reasonable to reduce the length of this consultation period.

The SMB (Standardization Management Board), the decision-taking body of the IEC responsible for standards development, has decided to put in place a pilot project involving three TCs (Technical Committees) that work in fast-moving technical fields and produce a considerable number of publications. The three TCs will have the option to reduce the CDV enquiry time and voting from five months to three months; they include IEC TC 40: Capacitors and resistors for electronic equipment, IEC TC 86: Fibre optics, together with its three SCs (Subcommittees) and IEC TC 100: Audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment, including its eleven TAs (Technical Areas).

Based on this experience, the IEC SMB will decide one year from now if it can extend this practice to all IEC TCs so that the whole IEC can benefit from the decrease in time it takes to develop a globally relevant voluntary International Standard.