What is ISO and what is an international standard?

ISO is the abbreviation of International Organization for Standardization, and ISO means "equality" in Greek. The full English name of the organization is International Organization for Standardization.

ISO is one of the largest international standardization organizations in the world. It was established on February 23, 1947, and Mr. Howard Coonley of the United States was elected as the first chairman of ISO. The predecessor of ISO was the International Federation of International Standardization Associations (ISA for short) established in 1928.

The purpose of ISO is to "promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world in order to facilitate the international exchange of goods and services, and to cooperate in the fields of intelligence, science, technology and economy." ISO now has 117 members, including 117 countries And region. The highest authority of ISO is the "General Assembly" once a year, and its daily office is the Central Secretariat, located in Geneva, Switzerland. The Central Secretariat currently has 170 staff, headed by the Secretary-General.

ISO conducts technical activities through its 2856 technical institutions. There are 185 technical committees (TC), 611 sub-committees (SC), 2022 working groups (WG), and 38 special working groups.

The results of ISO ’s 2,856 technical institutions ’technical activities are“ international standards ”. ISO has now formulated more than 10,300 international standards, mainly related to the technical specifications of various products in various industries.

The format of the international standard number formulated by ISO is: ISO + standard number + [bar + substandard number] + colon + release year number (the contents in square brackets are optional), for example: ISO8402: 1987, ISO9000-1: 1994, etc. are the numbers of a certain standard.

International standards refer to standards developed by international standardization bodies. At present, in addition to ISO, 29 recognized international standardization organizations include IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ITU (International Telecommunication Union) and WHO (World Health Organization). Although these institutions have all formulated international standards in related fields, the most authoritative and the largest number of standards are still ISO and IEC. Although they are two independent institutions, they complement each other in business and cooperate closely in their work. IEC is responsible for formulating international standards in the electrical and electronics fields, and ISO is responsible for other fields. Joint issues are taken in issues involving common fields to form an ISO / IEC joint working group to jointly issue international standards (such standards use ISO / IEC dual Code).