r?? mm Symposium on International Standards Information and ISONET NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS The National Bureau of Standards' was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1901. The Bureau's overall goal is to strengthen and advance the Nation's science and technology and facilitate their effective application for public benefit. To this end, the Bureau conducts research and provides: (1) a basis for the Nation's physical measurement system, (2) scientific and technological services for industry and government, (3) a technical basis for equity in trade, and (4) technical services to promote public safety. The Bureau's technical work is per- formed by the National Measurement Laboratory, the National Engineering Laboratory, and the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology. THE NATIONAL MEASUREMENT LABORATORY provides the national system of physical and chemical and materials measurement; coordinates the system with measurement systems of other nations and furnishes essential services leading to accurate and uniform physical and chemical measurement throughout the Nation's scientific community, industry, and commerce; conducts materials research leading to improved methods of measurement, standards, and data on the properties of materials needed by industry, commerce, educational institutions, and Government; provides advisory and research services to other Government agencies; develops, produces, and distributes Standard Reference Materials; and provides calibration services. The Laboratory consists of the following centers: Absolute Physical Quantities 2 — Radiation Research — Thermodynamics and Molecular Science — Analytical Chemistry — Materials Science. THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING LABORATORY provides technology and technical ser- vices to the public and private sectors to address national needs and to solve national problems; conducts research in engineering and applied science in support of these efforts; builds and maintains competence in the necessary disciplines required to carry out this research and technical service; develops engineering data and measurement capabilities; provides engineering measurement traceability services; develops test methods and proposes engineering standards and code changes; develops and proposes new engineering practices; and develops and improves mechanisms to transfer results of its research to the ultimate user. The Laboratory consists of the following centers: Applied Mathematics — Electronics and Electrical Engineering 2 — Mechanical Engineering and Process Technology 2 — Building Technology — Fire Research — Consumer Product Technology — Field Methods. THE INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY conducts research and provides scientific and technical services to aid Federal agencies in the selection, acquisition, application, and use of computer technology to improve effectiveness and economy in Government operations in accordance with Public Law 89-306 (40 U.S.C. 759), relevant Executive Orders, and other directives; carries out this mission by managing the Federal Information Processing Standards Program, developing Federal ADP standards guidelines, and managing Federal participation in ADP voluntary standardization activities; provides scientific and technological advisory services and assistance to Federal agencies; and provides the technical foundation for computer-related policies of the Federal Government. The Institute consists of the following centers: Programming Science and Technology — Computer Systems Engineering. 'Headquarters and Laboratories at Gaithersburg, MD, unless otherwise noted; mailing address Washington, DC 20234. 2 Some divisions within the center are located at Boulder, CO 80303. 0> O tf> Symposium on International Standards Information and ISONET Proceedings of a Symposium •Held at the National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland, October 11-12, 1979 Edited by Charles B. Phucas Office of Engineering Standards National Engineering Laboratory National Bureau of Standards Washington, D.C. 20234 Sponsored in part by: American National Standards Institute 1430 Broadway New York, NY 10018 <**■* ° F o 0t U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Philip M. Klutznick, Secretary £ Luther H. Hodges, Jr., Deputy Secretary g Jordan J. Baruch, Assistant Secretary for Productivity, Technology and Innovation \ NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS, Ernest Ambler, Director Issued June 1980 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-600073 National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 579 Nat. Bur. Stand. (U.S.), Spec. Publ. 579, 61 pages (June 1980) CODEN. XNBSAV U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1980 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 Price $3.50 (Add 25 percent additional for other than U.S. mailing) Preface Over the past several years, the American National Standards Institute and the National Bureau of Standards have been working cooperatively with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to provide United States input to the development of an Inter- national Standards Information Network called ISONET. The ISONET concept involves cooperative information exchange agreements between national standards information centers (ISONET members) cover ing national and international standards as well as technical regulations and related "standardizing" documents. The primary purpose of ISONET is to promote international trade by providing rapid access to reliable infor- mation concerning standards and other technical requirements applicable to exported and imported products. Recent events in the United States, including the enactment of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979, have brought increased national attention to the need for improved mechanisms for exchange of information on standards, technical regulations, and certification systems on a worldwide basis. Title IV, Technical Barriers to Trade (Standards) , of the Trade Agreements Act directs the National Bureau of Standards to maintain a national standards information center to "serve as the central national collection facility for information relating to standards activities, whether such standards, systems, or activities are public, private, domestic, or foreign, or inter- national, regional, national, or local." Participants in this Symposium had an opportunity to learn more about existing inter- national standards information systems as well as the plans for the further develop- ment of ISONET. Through question and answer discussions, participants were able to learn about new developments in U.S. trade policy, especially those policies per- taining to standards and certification systems. A special session on Friday, October 12, was devoted to presentations and discussion by representatives frcm ISO, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany. 111 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/symposiumoninterOOsymp TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface iii Executive Summary vii U.S. Implementation of GATT Trade Policies and the GATT Standards Code Donald S. Abelson, Office of the U.S. Special Trade Representative 1 NATO Objectives for Standards Harmonization Donald Mitchell, Department of Defense 7 Capabilities Presentation — Information Services for Exporters Rudy Rutelionis, International Marketing , Information Handling Services .... 9 Providing Information Services to Exporters Brian Roden, British Standards Institute 11 To Promote International Trade by Providing Rapid Access to Reliable Information Jerry Lieblich, Global Engineering Documentation Services 13 Standards and Technical Regulations - The International Solution E. J. French, International Organization for Standardization 17 Standards and Technical Regulation - The Information Problem Edward Kierski, General Secretary of Polski Komitet Nomalizacji i Miar ... 23 Statement - Presented Before The Symposium on International Standards Information and ISONET Curt Mohr, DIN-Deutsches Institut fur Normung e.V 25 Presentation on the Standards Council of Canada and Their Role in Information Exchange Albert A. Tunis, Standards Council of Canada 27 A Small Country in the World of Standards Gudbrand Jenssen, Norges Standardisringsforbund 35 AFNOR and Information About Standards and Related Matter Daniel Geronimi, Association Francaise de Normalisation 39 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Speakers ,, Appendix A Trade Agreements Act of 1979 Statements of Administrative Action 43 Appendix B ISONET Constitution Second Edition 53 VI Executive Summary The jointly sponsored ANSI/NBS symposium on International Standards Information and ISONET was held on October 11 and 12, 1979 at NBS. Dr. John W. Lyons, Director of the National Engineering Laboratory, NBS, gave the welcoming remarks and Dr. Lawrence D. Eicher, Director, Office of Engineering Standards, gave an overview of the Symposium Program. Mr. Donald Abelson, Office of the Special Trade Representative, discussed the U.S. implementation of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) trade policies and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (GATT Standards Code) . Mr. Donald Mitchell, Deputy Director, DMSSO, Department of Defense, gave his presentation on the NATO objectives for Standards harmonization. The next portion of the Symposium was devoted to, "Information Services for Exporters." The speakers included were frcm two U.S. private companies: Global Engineering Services and Information Handling Services. Also, a speaker from the Department of Commerce's Industry and Trade Administration participated in this session along with a representative frcm the British Standards Institute's Technical Help to Exporters (THE) program. During the second day of the Symposium panel discussions were held on the subject of ISONET, which is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) information network that is presently under development. The ISONET idea involves cooperative information exchange agreements between national standards information centers (ISONET members) covering national and international standards as well as technical regulations and related "standardizing" documents. Panel members represented: the International Standards Organization, Mr. French, the Information Committee of ISO-INFCO, Mr. Kierski, the Deutsches Institut fur Normung (DIN), Mr. Mohr, the British Standards Institute (BSI) , Mr. Roden, the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) , Mr. Tunis, the Norges Standard iseringsforbund (NSF) , Mr. Jenssen, the Association Francaise de Normalisation (AFNOR) , Mr. Geronimi. The comments presented by the domestic and international guests are published herein for your information. VI 1 U.S. IMPLEMEHTATICN OF GAIT TRACE POLICIES AND THE GAIT STANDARDS CODE Mr. Donald S. Abelson, Office of the U.S. Special Trade Representative I am here as a trade specialist — a person who, in fact, has an orientation in trade policy, to address people who have a very specialized expertise in technical matters - standards. In a way, I think that the kind of forum and subject that I am ad- dressing are almost opposite one another. The concepts I deal with involve liberaliz- ing trade, and providing an opportunity and environment within the world cotinunity for trade. Many of the concepts you deal with are very technical, dealing with specific regulations, specifications and tests for products or with determining of the safety of products. Yet, of course, the two issues are directly linked. Reference was made to the Federal Trade Commission and, of course, reference was made to the work of my Office. Both of these activities involve investigations of standards, regu- lations, certification systems, etc. — what I call standards-related activities — and their impact on trade. Previously, in the international sphere it had been recognized that tariffs, duties assessed on codes as they cross national borders, created trade barriers. The higher the duty, the more difficult it is for a purchaser in the importing country to pay for the product — very simple. The last five rounds of the Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) , which took place in Geneva under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) , have been on tariffs. After the Kennedy Round, which ended in the mid 1960 's, there was a realization that there were other issues that affected trade, such as non- tariff barriers (NTB) ; thus , the GATT developed an inventory over a period of over five years of issues that created non- tariff barriers. One of the most important areas, I think it included about one-third of all the noti- fications to this inventory, involved standards — technical regulations. I also include in that definition (again I'll say standards-related activities) both mandatory and voluntary certification ays- terns; quality assurance programs, marking, labeling, and packaging requirements; term- inology; and symbols. Thus, I'm being very broad when I use the word "standards." You can see how standards can be a barrier to trade; if, for instance the French have a standard for forklift trucks, developed unilaterally, that is very different from the European regional standard and very- different from our standard, of course we can't ship our trucks to France unless we market and produce them specifically to the French standard. And if we have spent time working with the community on developing such a standard and the French take this unilateral action, we can't even market the products that were specifically manu- factured for European market. In such a case, the French have created a trade barrier. The efforts of the U.S. Govern- ment in this area were, in fact, to try to create an environment, and to actually draft a document that would prevent such a French action. That is indeed what the task standards trade negotiators were. The negotiations were a series of discus- sions on a draft document of principles that should be used in the development of standards. The document in no way ref- erences any specific standards. It talks about how to develop standards as opposed to what each standard should be. These are, however, very important principles, which came out of a direct problem that the United States has with the Europeans in terms of a regional certification system for electronic components. As I understand it, the system started out as a tripartite certification arrangement between the British, the French, and the Germans. The certifications done in each of the three countries would be accepted in each of the other countries. Fine, no problem with that. But there was a hitch: only products produced in one of the three countries could be certified by the system; so it was closed. A basic principle of the GATT specifies that Most Favored Nation (MFN) treatment shall be accorded to all partici- pating countries. That means a country cannot discriminate between products coming from two different countries if they both share or are given Most Favored Nation treatment. The tripartite arrangement broke that principle. Also, there's a principle of trade, called a National Treatment Clause, a country shall afford equal treatment to products produced in a foreign country as to products produced within its borders. Of course, the tripartite agreement breaks that prin- ciple. The Europeans came back to us and said, "That might be so; however, in order to establish a certification arrangement we have had to undergo a series of negotia- tions regarding the acceptance of each other's certification marks, thereby liber- alizing trade within our countries. When we are ready and when you can meet our standards, we will let you in." That's perfectly reasonable in a way. In order to enter into a certification agreement you must determine what qualifications are necessary. However, we had no part in the development of the rules - we would be allowed into their systems under their rules - which caused us a great deal of prob- lems. European standards for electronic and electrical components are very differ- ent from ours , . and what they were saying was that you comply with us - our rules - and we will let you in. Therefore, when this issue was raised in the late 1960 's, the American National Standards Institute, the U.S. National Committee to the Inter- national Electro-Technical Commission (IEC) , the Electronic Industries Association, the Office of Product Standards, and my Office (the Office of the U.S. Trade Representa- tive) became interested in changing the course of events and seeing what we could do. It was at that point that two things happened: (1) we began discussions on the standards code, which was drafted between 1971 and 1973; and (2) discussions began on the development of an international quality assurance system for eletronic components, the IECQ. (I'll leave aside the IECQ, since it's not my responsibility. It's a private sector initiative.) The original standards code negotiations took place over two years; we approached the Europeans and said "Open up your certification systems." Openness: the key tenet of the U.S. position — openness. They responded with: "Well, we're not quite sure about that. As we told you, we have to negotiate; there are problems involved. But we'll talk to you about the U.S. using international standards." The U.S. does not generally use international standards. In the past, all we did was go to international standards meetings and, even though a standard might not be exactly what we'd use here (in fact, was inconsistent with our standard) , for the purpose of promoting international stan- dardization, we might vote for its approval. Thus, we might approve an international standard knowing full well we would never use it. The European's pointed a finger at us and said, "Use them." We came back to them and said, "Fine. We'll talk to you about that, but what about the use of open procedures? You know, what about publication of a notification that you're going to develop a standard and receiving comments on the proposal." And they said, "Well we don't know about that. We don't really do that. Around here what we do is call up a friend who develops a standard and then it's issued; but we'll think about it. Why don't you participate more often in international standardization activities?" We said, "Well, you know, it's pretty far to go over to Geneva. For you it's just a flight from Brussels, or from Paris, or from London, but for us it's from Washington. We'll think about it, but we want you to provide more information on your standards-copies of them. Publish the final copy. Let's have an information net- work developed, perhaps under the auspices of the GATT." They said, "Fine, we'll think about it." The last thing they said to us was, "This is all well and good; but what about your States and what about the private sector? When you negotiate with us (this is the French speaking) you're negotiating with a central government whose responsibility covers standards activities across the board — everybody. When we negotiate with you, Washington, are you talking for Cleveland, Ohio, and Spokane, Washington, and Santa Barbara, California, or when it canes to something that has to do with Arizona, are you going to say, 'Well, States rights'? And what is this thing called the American National Standards Institute, the American Society for Testing and Materials and, Underwriters Laboratories? How do they fold into this whole process?" We said we will comply with the GAIT principle requiring us to do every- thing within our power to ensure the compliance of states. They said, "We know what that is — everything in your power — you write a letter from the Secretary of State and that's it." That is a basic review of the history of the standards code. The negotiations took eight years from the time they began to the time it was signed. The U.S. entered into the negotiations in Geneva under the authorization provided in the Trade Act of 1974. The Trade Act said, "Go ahead, Mr. President, you may enter into these negotiations to reduce trade barriers, but when you're finished, we the Congress, will have some very specific instructions for you on how to implement these agree- ments." I'll get back to that later. The final document that evolved from the discussions in Geneva, is officially en- titled the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. It has basically what I consider to be eight or nine substantive provisions, information and assistance provisions, and finally a section on enforcement. The sub- stantive provisions can be divided into three parts — those dealing with standards, those dealing with conformity to standards (i.e. , testing) and, finally, those with certification. Each of the three parts are broken down into three parts themselves — regarding the activities of Central Govern- ments, State governments, and private bodies. The Federal Government, in develop- ing standards, shall not discriminate against imoorted products. Standards developed by the Federal Government shall not be created to, nor have the effect of creating trade barriers . The Federal Government shall participate in relevant international standards bodies; it shall develop, when appropriate, standards based on performance rather than design criteria; it shall use appropriate international standards; and when it does not use international standards, it shall use open procedures. With regard to those other two levels — the states and the private sector — the code requires that the Federal Government shall use "best efforts" to ensure the compliance of the states and the private sector. With regard to testing, the code says that Central Governments shall, when they test products within their borders, not discrim- inate against imported products. However, it is also recognized that the best way to alleviate or to get rid of trade barriers between countries when it comes to testing is to enter into arrangements on the accept- ance of foreign test data, foreign certificates, or marks of conformity. In order to enter into such arrangements, you must enter into negotiations. The code goes on to say that with regard to the testing activities of States and the private sector, the Central Government shall use its best efforts to ensure their compliance. Then, finally, with regard to certification systems, the code says that they shall be open, just as we discussed with regard to standards-not creating trade barriers or having the purpose of creating trade barriers — and that certification systems, whether of a national or regional nature, shall grant "access", in other words be open to suppliers from all adherents to the standards code. That's what the U.S. enter- ed into negotiations to get. It goes back to the tripartite agreement. There can be no tripartite agreement under the standards code because you cannot maintain a system that is not, at least, open to everybody who signs the standards code. There are other provisions to the standards code which involve the treatment of infor- mation, technical assistance, and developing countries. An important element of the information provisions, from the U.S. point of view, involves the National Bureau of Standards. The standards code provides for an information network (a flow of information to and from adherents to the code) . The United States must be able to provide standards of the private sector, the State government, and the Federal Government, and must provide rules of certification systems, and post notices of standards and certifi- cation activities. And, of course, in order to get the benefit of the standards code, we should have at our fingertips informa- tion on foreign national, regional, and international activities. We must be able to have access to all that kind of infor- mation — it's two-sided. Finally, the standards code has a dispute settlement mechanism. That's enforcement. What good is an agreement — we're talking about a document about 50 pages long — what good is a piece of paper like this unless there is seme way to put it into effect and to use sanctions when a violation occurs? But how do you do that? How do you enforce a document that deals with technical issues? If it's merely a question of a violation of one of the code provisions: did a country publish a notification or not? That seems to be relatively clear-cut. Same would go for whether a country provided openness in its regional or national certification systems or not? However, standards issues can also be very technical. We had a prob- lem with the Japanese which involved the spraying of our oranges with a chemical to prevent rotting, TBZ. The Japanese said, "I'm sorry, the level of TBZ in the skin of your oranges (which you peel off, of course) is too high for our Japanese standards. We won't permit it." We said, "That's a trade problem. We know Japanese demand for our oranges is high. A glass of fresh orange juice costs $4. You're just using the chemical issue as a way of pre- venting access to the market." They said, "Absolutely not. This is a health and safety issue." What do you do? That is not a clear-cut case. Is it a health and safety issue or is it not? Where do you go? The standards code dispute settlement mechanism recognizes that there are clear- cut policy issues which violate a clear-cut code obligation, but that there are also technical issues. Thus, the code contains two kinds of dispute settlement mechanisms. Basically, dispute settlement goes like this: You have to complain. If somebody in the United States has a complaint about a French standard (the forklift standard, let's say) , they would come to the U.S. Government, which would go to the French Government, and request consultations: let's talk about it, let's sit around a table, let's discuss it on a bilateral basis. That's where resolutions should take place, hopefully. That's the best forum. For arguments sake, though, let's say it doesn't work. We would then say to the French Government that we are going to complain officially under the standards code. We want the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (a body established under the code, with one representative from each signatory) to discuss this issue. The Committee meets; they would establish a panel or technical group depending on the nature of the case. The French might claim for safety reasons they must require air bags in all cars. Although they may claim "safety" - we could still allege their practice to be a trade barrier. Thus, a technical group might meet. The members of the group would not be from any of the countries that are a party to the dispute, and they would be scientists experts in the field who would not be reviewing the case as it pertains to trade, but with regard to any technical factors. The group would make a decision as to whether there was a basis for the claim that safety concerns were involved. Then, they would come up with recommendations. If we, the United States, were not satisfied, we could re- quest a panel — with a policy orientation. We would allege the French practice to be a violation of the code, and might cite the report of the technical group. Ultimately, after a 14-month period (there are very specific deadlines in this process) , the Committee could make a final recommendation, including the reconnendation that because the French have nullified or impaired U.S. rights under the code, they must either change their procedures or suffer sanctions that the United States would be authorized to take to restore the reciprocal balance of trade that existed before the French took their action. For instance, they didn't let us get into their certification system; we might not let them get into ours — something that would equalize the situation. I have just described an international legal instrument, representing an executive agree- ment between the President of the United States and other countries. As authorized under the Constitution, the President may enter into executive agreements. An execu- tive agreement does not become a law of the land of the United States. It, like the Panama Canal Treaty, must either be ratified by the Senate or — and now I get back to the Trade Act of 1974— What the Trade Act said was, "Go ahead, Mr. President, negotiate, for when you come back, we, the Senate and the Congress, will want to pass legislation that will put what you negotiate into effect in the United States." Theoretically, the legislation and the international agreement should be the same. Then there would be consistency between domestic and interna- tional obligations. That is indeed the process that went on last spring. We brought back the standards code that was initialed (i.e., put in concrete but not finalized) in April 1979 and then we began to negotiate with the Hill on what the legislation would look like. The legisla- tion is called "The Trade Agreements Act of 1979" (Public Law 96-39). It is not the same as the standards code; these are two different things. The basic difference is that the legislation (1) approves the stan- dards code (an amorphous legal term that no one has defined — "approves the standards code" — it does not make the standards code U.S. law) , and (2) with regard to the stan- dards code, the legislation lists the obligations that the United States will fulfill. In essence, the U.S. will fulfill all the obligations. The legislation does not give private persons any rights (at least in the standards code part, Title IV of the Trade Agreement Act of 1979) ; it gives foreign adherents to the standards code rights. Let me run through that. It says that the United States shall do the following things: With regard to Federal agencies, we shall use appropriate interna- tional standards; we shall participate in international standards bodies; we shall base our standards on performance rather than design; and we shall treat imported products fairly. You are a domestic citizen, and you, a citizen of Cleveland, Ohio, want to complain about the government of Cleve- land, Ohio: you don't have a right under the standards code. It makes sense. We negotiated standards code with the foreign- ers; we give foreigners rights under the standards code. If you were a French citi- zen and you were having problems with a city in Ohio, then you would go to your government and your government would come to the U.S. Government for consultations. Then the procedure that I just talked about — the dispute settlement — takes place. Title IV of the Trade Agreements Act provides certain unique and badly needed guidelines for Federal Government agencies and for others (State governments and pri- vate persons) regarding standardization. It not only includes the basis tenets of the standards code as I've described them and makes them law in the United States, but also creates new offices and new re- sponsibilities . The Office, of the U.S. Trade Representative is responsible for coordinating trade policy regarding the trade aspects of standardization. That was never clear before, but now is. There are two technical offices established under the Trade Agreements Act, one in the Department of Commerce and one in the Department of Agriculture, to help information flow, to provide information on standards and to help exporters get their products accepted in other countries. There is, of impor- tance to the National Bureau of Standards, an information center created to provide information on all those ranges of things that I talked about. And, important to those gathered here, the United States is to use appropriate international standards and to participate in appropriate interna- tional standardization bodies. Recognized in the bill, for the first time that I know of in a piece of legislation, is the difference between participation by the United States Government in a treaty organi- zation (the OIML, Alimentarius , NATO, etc.) and participation of the United States in private international standards bodies. Participation in private international stan- dards organizations (for instance the International Electro-Technical Commission (IEC) and the other bodies that develop international standards by the United States is carved out by private per- sons — member bodies — such as ANSI. This is the first piece of legislation I think that recognizes that (1) the U.S. is represented by private domestic bodies, and (2) there should be a mechanism established for those instances where private bodies are not ade- quately representing the United States; a procedure for questioning U.S. representa- tion, and requesting the member body to either increase representation or, allow the Department of Commerce to take on the re- sponsibility of representation using the auspices of the private sector member, because, for example ANSI is the only recognized U.S. member to the ISO and the IEC (as recognized by the ISO and the IEC) . The bill also provides funding for instance in which we must help out and increase U.S. representation; for domestic technical assistance; and, for consultations with the private sector in developing U.S. policy. Finally, the last step in the implementation of the standards code. The President has issued a reorganization plan, Reorganization Plan Number 3 of 1979, dealing with trade. While all these talks were going on — the MTN talks, and throughout the spring of 1979 when we were implementing the trade agreements — the Congress kept saying we want a Department of Trade. That would have had a very big impact on the Department of Commerce, certainly, the Department of Treasury, State, and Agriculture, and on my Office; People like Senator Ribicoff were saying they wanted a Department of Trade so that the U.S. was actively promoting U.S. trade interests. The compromise reached gives my office as well as the Department of Commerce increased responsibilities. With regard to the standards code, my office is responsible for policy guidance (that's a vague word) that arises as a result of implementation of the standards code. This was a hard fought compromise; USTR can issue policy guidance with regard to matters that affect trade and commodities. Also, USTR is responsible for U.S. participation in the OEDB, UNCTAD, and the GAIT— my office has full resposibility for that, recognizing that the Department of Commerce must provide us with technical assistance (the backup work — the main work that goes on) . In this reorganization plan you have trade concen- trated in the USTR Office and the Department of Commerce. That, as I understand it, went into effect yesterday. We are no longer called the "Special Trade Representative's Office"; but, rather the "Office of the U.S. Trade Representative." We're not special, anymore, and we're not only involved in negotiations . All of this is to go into effect January 1, 1980. By that point (in about 5 weeks) , the United States is to have technical offices, and an information center; we're going to be functioning; we'll be able to handle com- plaints and disputes. There could be a significant change from how the U.S. participated in international standards activites in the past and how we will participate in the future, and in our use of international standards as well as in the whole process of standards develop- ment, because more and more and more we will be looking towards what is happening elsewhere to see whether standards are relevant for use in the U.S. If they are relevant and appropriate, we should be using them. NATO OBJECTIVES FOR STANDARDS HARPCNIZATTON Mr. Donald Mitchell, Department of Defense NATO ORGANIZATION NATO is broadly divided into operational (military) and engineering (civilian) organizations. Standardization within the military side comes under the Military Agency for Standardization (MAS) . The MAS is composed of three boards, an Army, Navy, and Air Board. The Chairman of MAS has little direct authority over the boards, but performs administrative functions for all of NATO regarding assignment of NATO STANAG (Standardization Agreement) numbers, and generally keeps track of what goes on. On the "civilian" side, standardization comes principally under a "Council of National Armament Directors" (CNAD) . The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (currently Dr. Perry) is the National Armaments Director for the U.S. Under the CNAD, standardization is carried out by Army/Navy/Air Force armaments groups and "cadre" groups on various generic sub- jects such as quality, and cataloging. These cadre groups include one on which I serve as U.S. representative — a group, designated AC/301, on standardization of Assemblies, Components, Spare Parts and Materials (ACSM) . STANDARDIZATION HURDLES Definitions - Within an organization as large as NATO and having a diverse member- ship, problems of definition are exacerbated. Nuances of meaning in terms such as harmonization, rationalization, normalization, standardization, simplifica- tion, interchangeable, interoperability, identity, compatibility, make communication difficult in the standardization arena. Orientation - Historically the word standardization is used within NATO in a much broader sense than usual. It relates to standardization of operational procedures such as military tactics and doctrine as well as to complete weapon systems. As a result, the organizational superstructure has developed and is oriented in a manner quite different from that which we think of as standardization within the U.S. This superstructure, in the opinion of many, can act to inhibit good performance in stan- dardization of products and engineering practices . Organization - The diversity of "standardi- zation" activity within NATO makes coordination and visibility between groups very difficult. This is compounded by the fact that NATO is a "supernational" organi- zation in which participation is voluntary and use of standards is not binding except as a participating nation desires to make it mandatory on himself. This can make effective standardization relatively difficult . THE AC/301 (ACSM) GROUP Based on a U.S. recommendation developed in coordination with the U.K., the AC/301 Group was formed in 1977. The concept underlying the group is "bottom-up" rather than "top-down" standardization which has been traditional. In other words, stan- dardizing parts used among many kinds of weapons has real advantage compared with the difficult job of standardization of specific end items, although end item standardization carries with it automatic standardization of components used on those end items. So far, AC/301 has: 1. Authorized new series of NATO standards called AStanPs, for ACSM items and en- gineering practices. 2. Agreed to adopt International (e.g., ISO and IEC) , National, or Military standards in that order of preference, when possible in favor of developing new standards. 3. Initiated major planning studies for: Mechanical items (U.S. task) Electrical/Electronic (U.K. task) Materials (French task) Chemicals (German task) 4. Formed or is forming subgroups in each of these areas to develop standards. 5. Published standards adopting ISO 1000 (AStanP 1) and giving visibility to various drawing practices (AStanP 2) , and is nearing completion of a Configuration Management Standard . FUTURE ACTIVITY It is hoped that AC/301 activity will lead to major standardization of ACSM items within NATO by publishing perhaps several thousand standards as compared with the present population of approximately 300 in the material area. Activity is presently under way which will consider establishing a permanent office in NATO to help with this task. CAPABILITIES PRESENTATION - INFORMATION SERVICES FOR EXPORTERS (A slide presentation) Mr. Rudy Rutelionis, International Marketing Information Handling Services Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rudy Rutelionis and I represent a company by the name of Information Handling Services, located in Denver, Colorado, USA. I would like to start this meeting by thanking all of you for attending, and for taking the time to be present at this Symposium and demonstration. In order to give you an understanding as to why Information Handling Services was created in 1959 and why it is the world's leader in micropublishing and information systems, we must look at the technical data explo- sion that is surrounding all of us. If one takes all of the technical information that was created in the history of the world up to 1950... it doubled by 1965. A mere 15 years! By 1975 it had doubled again, and will be doubling again every seven years ! ! Information Handling Services was created to organize this wealth of information, and we've been doing this for approximately 20 years. At the present time we have some of the most extensive and sophisticated information libraries in the world. We started by providing specialized data systems for the aerospace-aeroframe indus- tries. Our success allowed us to branch off into the marine engineering field, into the architectural construction field, and into the plant engineering petrochemi- cal field. Our services are now purchased by over 5,000 companies, many international in scope. One service available is VSMF or Visual Search Microfilm Files sometimes known as vendor specs microfilm files. Another is the U.S. Companies Exporters and Suppliers Services - a comprehensive collection of over 17,000 current manufacturer and distri- butor catalogs. This represents over 10 million products made or sold in the U.S. covering almost every type of item made. In addition to the products information, Information Handling Services also has available over 90 per cent of the world's cormercial and industrial standards and codes. For example, we are the prime distributor of the standards codes in microfilm for IEC, ISO, BSI, JIS and DIN (Deutsches Institute fur Normung E.V. ) . Currently, we are looking at distributing several others. All of the VSMF services dealing with commercial industrial standards, regard- less of whether they are domestic or international, are updated on a 60-day basis, and are indexed so that an indivi- dual can reference the document by number and also find the document title and its latest revision date. We have a unique index, which we refer to as the VSMF Commercial Industrial Standards Locator Index, which is an optional index that allows an individual to search all stan- dards by subject category. For example, if I wanted to know if there are any com- mercial or industrial standards that deal with, say, a water tight connector, all I need do is go into one cartridge and very quickly it will tell what standards, if any, have been written about the item. This type of search capability is very, very cost effective and can save a great deal of time for that organization or that individual who needs to know what standards and specifications are pertinent to a particular subject area. This next slide depicts the broad capabili- ties of the VSMF services. Through the different modular capabilities or section- alization of the various VSMF services, and the fact that they cover many different disciplines, it is quite possible that virtually all the technical data require- ments of the different departments or organizations within a large organization or company can be met. In summary, the Visual Search Microfilm Files - VSMF - is a series of technical information retrieval systems containing more than 6 million pages of product speci- fications, industry standards and codes, test procedures, federal and military spec- ifications and regulations. The data is organized into 106 sub-files which can be configured to meet the needs of a small team of specialists or departments or an entire company's requirements. Each VSMF system comes with a computer generated index and each is updated and reindexed regularly, some as frequently as every 15 days. Now I'd like to show you a typical data search. As you can see, this is an indi- vidual who needs information. He may need military specifications; he may need vendor catalog data; he may even need the latest commercial industrial standards. In any case, he needs to reference data. Often, he first checks a vendor catalog library that looks like this. But more than likely like this. In any case, he has to start finding the information because he has a requirement to do so. These might be all the catalogs that he has found that pertain to that particular product, or they also might represent the updates that have yet to be placed into the catalogs that are on his shelf. But as invariably happens, frustra- tion sets in. What you're looking at on this screen is the IHS alternative to this time-consuming and often frustrating hard copy data search. It represents one of the most advanced technical information retrieval systems available. In the event that this same engineer had the VSMF information systems available to him all he would have to do is go to the data station as pictured up on the screen, reference the information, select a cartridge, and insert it into a viewer. At this point he can either view the infor- mation or extract it directly off the film. Receiving a high resolution dry copy in a matter of seconds. The entire search for the latest information takes from 5 to 6 minutes as opposed to a hard-copy catalog product search of 45 to 50 minutes. Our first step in creating the systems we've seen is to go out and acquire the technical information. Once the information is received, coding engineers (approximate 30) review it to make sure it fits the programs and systems that we have. Then the infor- mation is indexed for storage in a computer and for use in the information systems. Ultimately, the final user will have ready access to the data and be able to retrieve it in a timely manner. As you can see from this slide, Information Handling Services utilizes some of the most sophisticated computer equipment available to create the systems, and to merge the tvro technologies, microfilm and computer, for the indexing and sorting of information. Once the information has been coded, indexed and entered in the computer, it is then filmed. Vfe utilize different types of .sys- tems and programs. Once the film has been . created, it is duplicated, and loaded into cartridges. This represents one of the finished products. And these are several of the microfilms that we create. For example, in the upper left hand corner is the cartridge, in the upper right hand corner there is a satellite cassette type cartridge for film, and in the lower position is microfiche. In addition to these formats, we also publish in paper, in ultrafiche and any other type of media that we feel is the cost effective way to disseminate the data. As mentioned earlier, what we've done is merged two technologies, computer and microfilm, into what is called micropublishing. The com- puter does the indexing, and the sorting for us; the microfilm represents the dissemina- tion of the data and the storage of the data. Although Information Handling Ser- vices processes over 45000 kilometers a year, we do not consider ourselves microfilm people. What we do consider ourselves to be is an information company. If there were to be developed tomorrow a better method, a more economical method, a quicker turnaround type method of disseminating the data that we are working with, we would use it immedi- ately. We are not locked into microfilm in any way, although I'm sure it will always be an ongoing method of data dissemination. But we look at ourselves as being on the threshold of new, more fascinating and interesting ways of disseminating technical information to our users. Thank you. 10 PROVIDING INFORMATION SERVICES TO EXPORTERS Mr. Brian Roden, British Standards Institute Selling a product overseas demands the successful coordination and solution of many problems if it is to be profitable - analysis of the market and of the competi- tion, decision on the advertising budget linked with the desired penetration of the market choice of an agent, and by no means least investigation of the technical re- 'quirements demanded by the target country and the customer. Technical requirements are often overlooked, since many orders are placed by foreign customers who assume that the manufacturer will conform to the technical requirements of his country, even when there is no speci- fic statement in the contract. Another cause of problem is the lack of liaison (or is it education?) between sales and produc- tion teams. When the export salesman has no knowledge of local standards and regula- tions, he may be signing up an order that his production manager may not be able to meet. THE GENERAL PROBLEMS - There are thus general problems around the world caused by technical requirements which all exporters will meet: 2. National standards and codes of practice 1. The laws of the land - safety and health of workers is the current fashion and one which is likely to last longer than most; con- sumer protection is also high on many countries' lists; environ- mental protection makes the head- lines less often now in many parts of the world, al- though in the USA and Japan it is still fairly high up the list. 3. Certification and approval 4. Customer requirements - there are about h million in the world and most are different engineering his- tories and philosophies, climate condi- tions, customs and idealogies, and sometimes deliberate dif- ferences to keep out the competi- tion. - usually demand- ing testing and inspection in each country. - surprisingly often overlooked. THE SOLUTION - Having recognized the problems, a company has two main choices in finding solutions: 1. Self-help 2. T-H-E - allocation of a man or men to the task of dig- ging out the information and applying it to company's pro- ducts . - the use of a specialist, consultant or- ganization, to do at least the preliminary work. T-H-E can be thought of as operating at 3 levels : Identification . Of regulations, national other (e.g. trade association) standards, standards, etc. 11 Supply . A list of documents is a beginning but the next stage is to have the documents - and to have them in a language the company can work in. The latter had led on to the development of an extensive translation service. Interpretation . Having got the documents, what do they mean? The transfer of information from paper to metal via the brain. Here THE engineers have both a number of years experience as well as answering a large number of similar questions. Also, they travel to discuss with the foreign, approval and inspection organizations, and to organize conferences where speakers from these organizations come to elaborate on these documents. SERVICES AVAILABLE TO COMPANIES IN THE USA These are outlined in the leaflet "Technical Help to Exporters" and operated in the USA through the National Technical Information Service . Further information is always available from David Grooms at NTIS or myself at T-H-E. For the price of a letter, telex or phone call, why not find out whether you have a problem and how much it will cost you for us to solve it? 12 TO PROMOTE INTERNATIONAL TRADE BY PROVIDING RAPID ACCESS TO RELIABLE INFORMATION Mr. Jerry Lieblich, Global Engineering Documentation Services, Inc. It is indeed an honor to be standing here with such an illustrious group of people concerned with the preparation and dissemination of specifications and standards. To be chosen by NBS to serve on a panel of this stature is like being chosen by the greatest one of all and told to report to heaven. Quoting from the announcement that each of you received which tempted you to leave your offices and attend this symposium, are the words "to promote international trade by providing rapid access to reliable information." Except for the word inter- national, those words gave birth to Global Engineering Documentation Services, Inc. However, the word "international" has crept into our business more and more each year. Let's review for a moment who is Global and why I am here. Going back to the year 1962, I was with Aerojet-General in Azusa, California which was well entrenched in government contracts with almost every branch of the armed services, the space pro- gram and assorted amounts of commercial products (all of which relied heavily on specifications and standards, both govern- ment and industry) . It therefore , is understandable that Aerojet had the largest and best Specifications and Standards Library on the West Coast. In fact, better than that, it was all in one place and not scattered among the many sources that the documents came from. I was fortunate enough to serve as the Chief Specifications and Standards Engineer for the corporation and responsible for seeing to it that the library had what was needed when it was needed as well as promoting the use of published specifications and standards within the corporation. The pursuing years found the aerospace business in decline and the library found itself with a need for a huge budget to keep it current and personnel to run it. And as all companies must do, when overhead gets too heavy, cuts had to be made. A study was conducted by myself which led to the discovery that only 10 per cent of the library was used at any one time and the other 90 per cent lay there waiting for a new bid or contract to use it. Thus the cost of keeping the 90 per cent current was too much to support during a declining market. My recommendation was that Aerojet dispose of the maintenance of the library by setting up a separate company to maintain the library, and then charge to overhead the 10 per cent information Aerojet needed, and make available publicly for sale the same services to support the remaining 90 per cent of the cost of running the library. Another alternative to the problem would be to sell the total library to a commercial company and buy back the material on an "as needed basis" without the cost of keeping it current. My recommendation went over like a lead balloon and along with many other engineers at the time, I left Aerojet for other endeavors. About three years later Aerojet contacted me after reviewing my proposal again and wanted advice on how to go about it. It was then I felt that I would like to take on the project; I proceeded to find a backer in Newport Beacn, California to purchase the Specifications and Standards Library from Aerojet and to follow the formula of selling back the information to Aerojet, and to anyone else we could interest in the service. I became President and General Manager of operations. The next few years were spent trying to prove it was cheaper and more efficient to pay for copies of specifications and standards delivered the next day than to get them free from the government two to six weeks later. The library was 95 per cent Aerospace oriented at the beginning, and over the years sales now stand at 30 per cent Aero- space and 70 per cent industry specifi- cations and standards. All of which proves it takes just as long to get industry specifications as it does to get govern- ment ones. 13 The general concept has several proven advantages which I shall briefly list. 1. The cost of a specification or standard is small compared to the time lost in the preparation of "request for quote", or the compliance with a published specification or standard. A $5 specification delivered the next day is compared to a free specification delivered 2 to 4 weeks later after the bid has passed. The hourly rate of pay plus overhead for an engineer over a period of 80 to 160 hours without the information needed could exceed over $2,000 of wasted time. 2. Documents from over 2,000 sources are located under one roof thus the need for ten documents coming from ten different sources requires ten purchase orders, ten checks, and ten delivery dates. One order, one check, and ' normally one delivery (24 hours later) accomplishes the whole thing. Also, the larger the company, the cost of cutting a purchase order and a check often exceeds $35 each and often two to three times the cost of the specification or standard being purchased. 3. The availability of a research depart- ment to seek out those ambiguous initials that are difficult to identify and locate their source. 4. The opportunity to avail yourself of a computerized update service to stay current. 5. Specification Tree Service provides all applicable documents to any tier with only one request. To illustrate, use DOD-D-1000 which is the Grandaddy on what is required to prepare an engineering drawing for a government military contract. This tier one specification lists applicable documents which are needed in support of DOD-D-1000 and are recognized as tier two. In turn these tier two documents list their applicable documents and are recognized as tier three and so on. Would you believe that DOD-D-1000 to the seventh tier will call for 84,000 applicable support documents of which 25,000 are in duplication of callouts. If you were to go the normal route, through normal channels of ordering from the source, it would take 2 to 6 weeks to get tier one DOD-D-1000, 2 to 6 weeks to get the documents from tier two, and so on. In short, it could take you 6 months to a year to assemble the information needed to bid on a contract for which you have 3 to 4 weeks to respond. So far I've told you who we are and what we do, which establishes the base for how we, as a commercial company, promote the use of specifications and standards both national and international. To begin with, Global was established by engineers and not librarians. As engineers with more than 20 years experience in the design proposal area of a company, we were well aware of the problems and delay in getting the information required during the "request of bid" cycle and later the building delivery cycles that followed. The general feeling by most people in engineering when they were approached by myself to finance the Global concept was "Who would pay for specifications and standards from the government that were free for the asking and pay as much as double the price for industry documents that were generally copyrighted with no reproduction privileges . " No one did come forward so it was a commercial building company that was looking to diversify that finally took the gamble to start Global. On July 5, 1968, the Aerojet library thus became the beginning of Global and the years that followed were spent convincing industry to buy what was free and pay a premium for other material . When the library started it was 95 per cent government and the balance industry. 14 In 1974 I became President and my wife Vice President; we acquired Global and changed directions. Today it is 30 per cent government and 70 per cent industry. Over half of the inquiries to Global (either by phone or mail) are requesting help in assisting them on what they need to perform in the design, manufacture, or shipment of their products. They are asking if such a specification or standard already exists to perform a situation before they take off on their own to create their own internal design or company specification or standard. Recently we received a request from NBS for all the specifications we could find on the rotating (bubble gum) light used on emergency vehicles. After researching our files we came up with about 12 inches thick of documents from both government and industry sources ranging from police vehicles to off -road farm tractors, which used such equipment. I asked the requestor why he came to Global when almost all these documents were located within his own files across town at GPO or within the industry association located on the East Coast. His answer was "From you I can get them overnight, from the source it will take 6 weeks." As more and more equipment is being exported or imported and must comply to the specifications and standards of the using country, the problem of getting copies of foreign specifications and standards and the U.S. specifications and standards overseas has more than doubled the time of getting the documents when needed. We have established agents in the key countries in which the need for one another's documents exist. We use telex communication between each of our facilities to expedite price and availability. Due to the time differential we are shipping 8 to 12 hours prior to the order being received and of course the reverse is true or a loss of a single day is encountered when material is shipped to us. Again our telex is filled with research-type questions to determine what is needed prior to the actual order. Four months ago we installed our second computer replacing an earlier, smaller one used for accounting purposes. The new one will take over a year to load the over one-half million titles, numbers, revision status, customer update services, and price information which will give us rapid access to the information needed for inquiries. In addition we will be able to generate a master index similar to the Department of Defense Index of Specifications and Standards (DODISS) with the added material from Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, GPO, FAA, etc. , and the major copyrighted industry documents together with the price and availability from Global. I envision this index will be three to four volumes, 3 inches thick, for each the numerical and alphabetical versions. It will represent the most common or most popular documents from each source and be "main- tained by Global as a stock item. Our computer capability will parallel the already popular on-line data bank systems such as Lockheed's dialogue and SFC's Orbit. The prime difference is when the information you are seeking becomes known, the buck doesn't stop there, or the search for the document source and its delivery begins. With our system, when the information is known, it is shipped the same day. While it is true we can't be everything to everyone requesting our help and delivery of the documents requested, we still are able to achieve better than 90 per cent response and the material is deliverable the same day the search for it began. Interesting enough our research department has had some exciting projects, one of which was rather unique in the way it came about. Rockwell International Space Division in Downey, California was in the design stages of the Space Shuttle program. They were in the process of reviewing and evaluating the specifications and standards required by NASA. I was called in to determine the availability and cost of obtaining the documents expediently for their response. I noticed that construction was needed for a men's room partition on the base and cited a NASA specification which would apply to a space vehicle. I made the comment that the Florida State Building Code could accomplish that at considerably less cost. I was awarded a contract to review all other specifications and to select the specification to fit the application. A prime example is that there are approximately 65 clean room specifi- cations from a broom swept floor to an ultra clean vacuum atmosphere and all necessary to match the proper allocation. This action did much to reduce the often made accusation of NASA for gold plating 15 everything. It helped to achieve the distinction of selecting the proper specifi- cation to fit the application. It took Aerojet-General 26 years to assem- ble the basic government library and Global another 10 years to assemble the technical and trade societies under one roof. The government is making it exceedingly more difficult to keep our files current with the addition of more rules and regulations for obtaining new and revised specifications and standards. The Freedom of Information Act helped for awhile but little by little, bureaucracy has taken hold to slow down the already bogged down methods of getting an acknowledgement when a simple inquiry is made for the availability of a document needed for a request for bid. It is no wonder that more and more qualified manufacturers each year drop out of the ranks of government bidders. If the government sources either won't or can't fill the needs of qualified manu- facturer's need for published government specifications and standards, then they should relinquish their hold on this valuable information to qualified commercial firms to do the job. The U.S. Post Office has permitted commercial firms such as United Parcel Service (UPS) to move package mail and is now considering permitting letter mail to be delivered by commercial firms other than the post office. Then why not allow qualified firms to be permitted to buy available unclassified specifications and standards from government agencies. These same specifications and standards should be made available to those vendors of information such as Global when requested and at a price reasonable to recover expenses. These same information vendors can then competitively provide these documents to the information hungry manufacturers both here and abroad to provide better and more realistic quotes to the same organizations that make it so difficult to respond to their own "request for quote." And that Ladies and Gentlemen is how I would, "promote international trade by providing rapid access to reliable information. " 16 STANDARDS AND TECHNICAL REGULATIONS - THE INTERNATIONAL SOLUTION Mr. E. J. French, International Organization for Standardization, Secretary for INFCO* 1. A Few Words About ISO - ISO (the International Organisation for Standardiza- tion) is the specialized international agency for standardization. The membership of ISO comprises the national standards bodies of 86 countries with one member per country. The ISO member body for the United States of America is ANSI, co-sponsor with the NBS of the present symposium. ISO publishes International Standards designed to facilitate the international exchange of goods and services and to aid other forms of human activity. An example is the standardization of test methods so that results obtained in different labora- tories, or in different countries, are comparable. Other types of International Standards deal with safety, environmental protection, information trans fer and many other subjects on international interest. There is a growing demand for international product standards from members of ISO and a stronger effort in this direction is likely in the future. Each ISO standard is the result of cooperation between groups and experts drawn from many countries. It re- presents an ' international agreement between the ISO member bodies. On an average two such agreements are reached each working day. The organizational structure of ISO, including lists of the ISO member bodies and the 157 technical committees are de- scribed elsewhere.-'- The full list of ISO is published in the ISO Catalogue2 which is updated by quarterly catalogue supplements . All ISO publications are available in the USA from ANSI. Although the main stream of ISO activity is directed towards the formulation and publi- cation of International Standards there are *The ISO Standing Committee for the study of scientific and technical information on standardization . also a number of other very important activities designed to ensure that the standards are known and used. ISO and its member bodies realize that a standard is useless unless it is implemented and for it to be implemented people must know about it. Hence we have a need for international information systems. Also, to be useful a standard must be respected. The public must come to realize that goods or services which conform to a standard are reliable and that is why many countries have intro- duced certification systems under which a product may be certified as conforming to a particular standard or set of standards by the award of a standards mark by the na- tional standards body. Permission to use a standards mark is normally subject to periodic inspection of the product con- cerned, and may be withdrawn if the product fails to reach the standard. The USA does not have a national certification system although there are of course many govern- mental, engineering society, trade association, independent testing laboratory,, independent foundation and company certifi- cation programmes. (The National Bureau of Standards has information on many such schemes.) It is important nevertheless for the American exporter or importer to know about national certification in other coun- tries and ISO has collected together information about the standards marks used in 45 countries, the associated testing and inspection conditions, and the penalties which apply in case of abuse. The publi- cation includes information also on four transnational marks. Other activities of ISO are directed towards the protection of consumers, assistance to developing countries, questions concerning reference materials and of course the study of the principles of standardization. Any national member body of ISO is entitled to take part in any or all of these activities and ANSI in fact takes part in all of them. Any ISO member body may take part in the work of any or all of the many Inter- national Standards and ANSI participates actively in nearly all of this work. Any organization can encourage and influence national and international standardization by supporting its national standards body 17 and taking part in its activities. It is important for your voice to be heard in ISO since national standards in many countries are more and more coming to be based upon International Standards. Hence your inter- ests as a nation, as organizations or individuals within a country or perhaps as multi-national organizations or companies are very much involved. But for all this the key is information, and the main purpose of this paper is to show you what ISO is trying to do to ensure that everyone has the information he needs about standards and similar documents. But first a few more words on who needs information and why. 2. Who needs information about standards and why? - First of all, anyone con- cerned with the writing of standards or regulations needs information. He needs to know whether the subject or a similar sub- ject has already been studied elsewhere. This will help him to avoid contradictions and repetitions and will also save time and money at the drafting stage. This consid- eration applies to all the 400 or so standards- writing bodies active in the USA. A standards body also needs to provide information to others if it wishes to sell its standards or to ensure they are applied. An efficient information service is of great benefit to the reputation of a stan- dards body and can be a significant factor in securing increasing support for its activities . Then government departments, as important purchasers, sponsors of projects of various types and in the course of their specialized duties, have a need for information on stan- dards very similar to that of any large organization. However, governments have national and international responsibilities which create a special need to know about standards and related documents. First there is the principle of reference to stan- dards which can simplify and accelerate legislative work. So that advantage may be taken in this way of existing and future standards, it is important for governments to be mac'e and kept aware of relevant stan- dards and work in progress. The principle of reference to standards is also available to intergovernmental organizations and as far as ISO and IEC standards are concerned it is described in a joint document ^ issued by these two organizations. Govern- mental recognition of this "need to know" is apparent from moves within a number of international organizations, notably the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) , to establish in each country a focal point for informa- tion about standards technical regulations. A national standards organization would appear to be the natural place to locate such a focal point in most cases. Industry, especially exporting industry, needs to know about standards and technical regulations affecting the acceptability of products and services in various markets and their delivery to the markets. If a national standards information centre is to respond to these important requirements it must extend its range to include Interna- tional Standards, codes and agreements, technical regulations and similar documents operating in foreign countries. For this purpose special information services have been set up by some ISO member bodies, such as the NOREX system in France, the Techni- cal Help to Exporters (THE) service in Britian and a number of privately operated services in the USA. Other speakers are concerned with the details of such services, but consider the possible effects if every country tried to set up a national service of this type on its own. The proliferation of such services, each gathering its own information from every source, would result in an increasing reluctance on the part of the sources to provide the information, because of the duplication of work involved for them (and of course for all concerned) . The alternative is the concept of ISONET which will be presented later in more detail. Information services themselves need regular and up-to-date information about standards. It is important for a standards-writing body to ensure that its standards are in- cluded with the other literature in the many general and specialized, national and international information systems. They provide an invaluable communication link with the potential user. 18 3. What is ISO doing about it? - The inportance of ensuring the universal avail- ability of information about standards has long been realized, by ISO. In 1969 ISO Council decided to form a "Standards Committee for the study of scientific and technical information on standardization" , to be known as INFCO and reporting directly to Council. The present Chairman of INFCO, Mr. Edward Kierski, is one of your speakers here today. The terms of reference of INFCO are at present defined in the following way: "To assist the development of the information centres on standardi- zation of the ISO Central Secretariat and the ISO Member Bodies and of the links between them and so to estab- lish an ISO information network: - by recommending carman systems for classifying and indexing standards and related information and for processing the information, - by encouraging the use of Inter- national Standards in the working of individual information centres and of the network as a whole, - by stimulating the exchange of knowledge and experience between the centres and encouraging the training of information personnel. To appraise the programme of the ISO Information Centre To foster profitable relationships with other international informa- tion networks To advise council on these and other matters related to the compilation, storage, retrieval, application and dissemination of scientific and technical infor- mation on standardization." The eleventh meeting of INFCO was held in Geneva on 11th and 12th September 1979 and the standards bodies of 30 countries were represented. ANSI was most compe- tently represented by Dr. Lawrence a Eicher and Mr. Charles B. Phucas, both speakers in the present symposium. At that meeting INFCO agreed upon a Constitution for ISONET and upon the conditions for the three types of membership, about which more will be said later. The conditions were all approved or endorsed by ISO Council which met the next day. Since the Constitution provides for INFCO to become the General Assembly of ISONET some revision of these terms or reference may now be necessary and this is being studied. 4. What is ISONET? - In almost every country there is a national standards organization, as represented by the ISO member body. Every one of these organiza- tions is called upon to provide information about the standards of its own country and more frequently about foreign and interna- tional standards. Hence the organization is forced to support some sort of informa- tion activity to meet this demand and to cooperate in the exchange of information with similar organizations in other coun- tries. At present information is exchanged between centres mainly by the physical ex- change of documents. ISO member bodies send each other copies of the standards they publish, of standards catalogues and other useful reference materials; the ISO Information Centre is included in this ex- change scheme and so, of course is ANSI. Hence ISONET already has much to offer, with a chain of national standards information centres already existing across the World to serve national needs and the ISO Infor- mation Centre in Geneva to serve the needs of the international organizations. In principle, each of these centres has a collection of national, international and foreign standards available for consulta- tion or purchase. In the USA you are particularly fortunate in the close co- operation which exists between your many standards-writing bodies and ANSI and of course between ANSI and the NBS as eviden- ced by the present symposium. This cooperation ensures that information is readily available to you about both Ameri- can and foreign standards and should go a 19 long way towards guaranteeing the future of ISONET as far as American participation is concerned. It must be admitted, however, that national standards information centres vary enormously in efficiency, capabilities and resources. Cooperative efforts within INFCO are designed to help to raise the general level. There are other disadvan- tages; the exchange of actual documents on a routine basis is expensive, especially with rising postal charges, and it can be wasteful. Also the collections in most centres are confined to standards published by national standards organizations, al- though several bodies have extended their collections to include other types of tech- nical regulations. Although there is much to offer even now, there is considerable room for improvement. ISONET is designed to develop the existing network so as to provide improved services, eliminating waste and duplication of effort wherever possible. The basic idea behind ISONET is that each national member shall accept the responsi- bility for providing information about standardizing activities in its own country. Each should aim to become the focal point for information about all kinds of techni- cal requirements operative in the country concerned. You have heard from another speaker about the GATT Standards Code and U.S. plans for its implementation; clearly ISONET and GATT are moving in the same direction. In seme countries the GATT focal point will be the ISONET national member, in others it may be located else- where, but it is to everyone's advantage if they can work very closely together in har- mony and certainly not as rivals. Any idea of establishing a monopoly in information about standardizing documents would be con- trary to the spirit of ISONET. 5. Who are the members of ISONET? - There are three classes of ISONET member. There is first of all the national member of ISONET which is either the ISO member in the country concerned or a body appointed by the ISO member. A national member if it so wishes may be aided by associate members which act under the sponsorship of the na- tional manber. The national member in any country is responsible for determining the privileges and responsibilities of any associate members which it may wish to appoint. The third type of member is the interna- tional affiliate, defined as any international organization which has joined ISONET by invitation of the Secretary General of ISO. At present there are no associate or inter- national affiliates, but national members of ISONET for 35 countries have already been appointed. To take account of the wide differences between the standards bodies in different countries, INFCO has defined three types of national member and each country is free to decide for itself whether it wishes to operate as a type 1, 2 or type 3 member. The conditions for participation in ISONET as a national mem- ber are given in the appendix. 6. Exchanges between members of ISONET - From these conditions it will be seen that the ISONET concept goes even beyond the re- quirements of the GATT standards code. When ISONET is functioning fully each coun- try will have an enquiry point capable of providing information about standards and technical regulations operating anywhere in the world. The members of ISONET agree to help each other by exchanging the informa- tion necessary to achieve this end. At first the information is likely to be exchanged in the form of documents, as at present, and by letter of telex in response to specific enquiries, but technical work- ing groups within INFCO have prepared an ISONET Indexing Manual and an ISONET Thesaurus designed to aid the exchange of information in machine readable form be- tween centres. Already some centres are operating experimental exchanges of this type on a bilateral basis. Hence, in the future, it will be possible for any centre to establish a selective data bank as a basis for the information services it wishes to offer. The Thesaurus and Manual are designed as tools for infor- mation exchange between centres, regardless of language, but might also become the basis for on-line services to be offered nationally. 7. Conclusion - In conclusion I should like to quote the objectives of ISONET, as stated in its Constitution: 20 "The objectives of ISONET shall be: - to promote closer cooperation among its members on questions of information - to aid the transfer of technology for development - to reduce technical barriers of technol- ogy for development - to reduce technical barriers to trade - to encourage coordination on stan- dardization and implementation of standards by promoting the flow of information on standards/ technical specifications and re- lated matters" Hence anything which encourages the flow of information on standards is acceptable to ISONET but any measures which tend to re- strict information are contrary to the spirit of ISONET - and we believe contrary to the best interests of all of us. We hope that all present here today will return home resolved to give ANSI and the NBS the maximum possible support and en- couragement so that the USA may play a leading role in this ambitious and impor- tant project. 1 ISO Memento 1979, ISO Geneva 2 ISO Catalogue 1979, ISO Geneva 3 Standards Marks, ISO Geneva, 1976 4 ISO/IEC Code of Principles on Reference to Standards, ISO Geneva 21 STANDARDS AND TECHNICAL REGULATIONS - THE INFORMATION PROBLEM Mr. Edward Kierski, General Secretary of Polski Komitet Normalizacji i Miar, Chair of INFCO* Over 4,000 ISO standards, 1,000 IEC recommendations, 6,000 COMECON standards and reconmendations and about 5,000 other standards and regulations, established by 70 different international organizations, over 200,000 national standards and just as many various national and governmental technical regulations together constitute an up-to-date picture of the quantitative achievement of world standardization. Of course one should add to this many plant standards beyond any formal registration and control. Eli Whitney, the father of standardization, and Henry Ford, its greatest precursor, would never have expected such an explosion of their ideas. However, what they really hoped and promised to the world and what was in fact realized, were the benefits which standardization offers to the national and international economy, to each producer and consumer as well. The world wide transfer of technology, the improvement of the quality of goods, effec- tive protection of the environment and of course, the more rational use of materials and energy - these are some undeniable ad- vantages of contemporary standardization. Thus it is evident that the development of international trade and technical coopera- tion demands a corresponding increase in the quantity and quality of information services, especially those concerning na- tional, foreign and international standards and technical specifications. Domestic producers and trade enterprises need more than their own national standards and tech- nical regulations when promoting the export of goods or technologies. They usually demand prompt, complete and often sophisti- cated information. Besides this, standards *the ISO Standing committee for the study of scientific and technical information on standardization technical committees are indispensable for their everyday work of establishing new standards. These problems are getting more important everyday, because of the continual increase in international rela- tions in all fields of human activity. Let us recall the three fundamental problems today affecting world economy: the first is the need for rational use of materials and energy when we stand face to face with the diffi- culties caused by diminishing resources on the one side and the growth of human needs on the other ; the second is the development of quality of goods to correspond better to the increasing requirements of con- sumers ; and the third is the protection of the hu- man and natural environment against the menace of in- dustrialization and technical progress . Those problems have a simultaneous impact and national and international standardization should be used as much as possible for their solution. It is obvious that standards should be based upon the highest level of scientific and practical achievement. Such standards, be- sides their practical value for the national economy, may play the role of an engine pushing forward world economy, as a whole, and especially the economy of developing coiontries. They should also accelerate international trade and cooperation in various fields. Here are some figures to emphasize their importance for the export and import of goods. According to statistics world exports which in 1938 reached a level of 21 raLlli oi n dollars, grew rapidly after the second World War to 12 G million dollars in 1960 and then to 1 ? 122 mi-Hion \dollars in 1977. \ M\ l 0\,^ 23 Sav sn ,WW\< *\ In the USA export grew from a value of about $20 mi±Jie« in 1960 to $119 million in 1977. Besides this some essential changes of the pattern of export and import have occurred in the USA during the last 10 years; the export of machinery has increased from 34 per cent to 43 per cent of the total, and in the same period the export of raw materials has decreased from 15 per cent to 10 per cent. The import of raw materials decreased 21 per cent to 6 per cent and the import of food stuffs from 22 per cent to 9.8 per cent of the total imports of the USA. The USA share of total world exports is 10 per cent and of imports 13 per cent. The significant increase of international trade relations and the changes in the structure of export and import are to be noticed everywhere. This movement is simultaneously accompanied by various non- trade international relations and agreements, among others also in the field of standardization. Today it is unquestioned that effective technical cooperation or the exchange of goods can be achieved only when the na- tional or governmental rules are fully respected by the partners. Any deviation from existing technical regulations may automatically cause economic or technical failures. This is of especially great importance in the export or import of goods which are under the protection and control of the state, like foodstuffs, electro- technical equipment, etc. This is the reason why in the last few years manufacturers and trading companies have been demanding, on such a large scale, technical information, especially on stan- dards and other standardizing agreements. Surveys by several standards information centres conclude that the demands for infor- mation concern - besides their own national standards and technical regulations - International Standards and the standards and technical specifications of the most developed countries. Enterprises are at the same time in favour of selective and more sophisticated bibliographic or facto- graphic information, concerning all existing technical regulations, which contain parameters as to the quality of products , methods of testing , etc . , which are indispensable for their decisions. Without such prompt and complete infor- mation, attempts to promote the export of goods or know-how might be unsuccessful. For example, in Japan over a ten-year period the exporters of steel and ferrous metals asked the national standards infor- mation centre about the following types of standards. The number of enquiries con- cerning each type are shown as percentages of the total number of enquiries. ASTM standards: 18 per cent, British standards: 10 per cent, DIN standards: 9 per cent and ANSI standards: 7 per cent. In the same period the exporters of machinery asked for ISO standards: 12.5 per cent, ASME standards: 11 per cent, ANSI stan- dards: 10 per cent and DIN standards: 8 per cent. The Polish Information Centre has noticed recently the interest of industry and trade in the following standards: for machinery - 33 per cent DIN standards, 15 per cent GOST standards, 5 per cent ANSI standards and for chemistry - 30 per cent DIN standards, 14 per cent GCST standards, 5 per cent ANSI standards and 2.5 per cent British standards . Of course the structure of inquiries on foreign standards depends in each country on the economic and technical orientation and can always change according to the economic situation or business outlook. This means that information must be easily accessible and open to all, anytime and anywhere. That is why the existing meth- ods of international exchange of information on standards and similar docu- ments, based mostly on copies of standards or catalogues of standards, should be supplemented or even replaced as soon as possible by more convenient and more effective methods of preparation and re- trieval of information concerning national and inter national standards and similar technical regulations. This leads in the same direction as the requirements of the so-called GAIT Standards Code* and is the reason why ISO has established the information exchange, known as ISONET. 24 *Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade GAIT, 12 April 1979, Geneva. STATEMENT - PRESENTED BEFORE THE SYMPOSIUM ON INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS INFORMATION AND ISONET Mr. Curt Mohr, DIN- Deutsches Institute fur Normung I am pleased to be given the opportunity to attend the Symposium and to present a short contribution as an ISONET member coming from a Western Europe country. Recently, at Vienna a big United Nations Conference on Science and Technology for Development took place. At that Con- ference it was stated that in only six countries - the USA, the USSR, Japan, France, Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany - 70 per cent of all scientists work who are available in the world for research and development, and that these six countries give out 85 per cent of the money which is spent in the world for research and development. You all know that a great deal of know-how and state- Df-the-art is represented by the technical standards of a country. It is, therefore, a must especially for the high- industrialized countries to facilitate the access to their standards and the knowledge contained therein, in order - to remove barriers to trade and - to assist technology transfer. DIN - The German Standards Institute I am working with DIN, the German Standards Institute. It is a private organization recognized by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany as the standards- writing organization in the country. DIN is now 62 years old, as ANSI is. The headquarters is in Berlin since its creation in 1917. DIN procedures are very similar to those of ANSI: We publish all standards projects in our nonthly bulletin ; we invite all interested parties - domestic and from abroad - to take part in the work; we publish the drafts and invite those who comment, to join the further consideration; and, we have an appeal procedure. About 700 people work full time for the organization, and we count that 40,000 experts sit in the 2,000 committees of DIN. At present, about 23,000 DIN stan- dards and drafts are valid. Many of them, especially the most modern ones, transfer results of the international standardiza- tion done by ISO and IEC, into the national field. German Information Centre on Technical Rules (DITR) 23,000 standards - that is too much to give the user only a catalogue to find out what he needs. DIN, therefore, stored the information of its standards into a data bank. To this aim, DIN owns a computer with 1 megabyte capacity of its main storage. The data bank on DIN standards allows not only to prepare automatically the yearbook and an accumulated supplement each month but also answers to individual questions which are mainly application- oriented. Research in this data bank is also possible from remote data terminals. In running such an information service we have learned that it is not sufficient to tell the user which DIN standards are available for his aim. The user wants to know whether there is any rule which he has to or should observe. Of special interest to him is, of course, whether technical regulations of the government exist in his case e.g. for personal safety or energy conservation. We made an investigation on how many technical rules exist in the Federal Re- public - technical rules - that means recommendations of different associations, DIN standards. . . up to technical regula- tions of different authorities. Now, the number is greater than 40,000 which DIN standards are the half of. Recently, we made the next step from the existing DIN standards data base to one which will in- clude all technical rules which are valid in our country. 25 Starting this month, with the financial support of the Federal Government, DIN is building up a German Information Centre on Technical Rules (DITR) in Berlin. We hope to be able in the next five years to input all national technical rules into a new data base. We know that for a qualified information service the computer is only a help. We also need assistance and exper- tise from standards engineers. The whole technical staff of DIN is, therefore, con- sidered as part of the system. Our Information Centre is prepared to fulfill the obligations of the GATT Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade concerning information on technical rules. DITR and ISONET Cur information system, again, is considered as part of ISONET, the worldwide information network on standards. Why? The main reason is an economic one. It costs a lot to elaborate qualified information about our national technical rules. We concen- trate ourselves on this activity and we hope that many other countries will do a similar job so that we may exchange infor- mation. Two years ago we have found that the ISO members together have approximately 200,000 standards. In the Federal Republic of Germany the some 20,000 DIN standards are supplemented by more than 20,000 additional documents, e.g. technical regulations. If the same ratio is applicable to all coun- tries/ ISONET has to deal with 400,000 documents. Presumably, the actual figure is considerably higher. This is not much compared with millions of patents. The frequent amendments and re- visions of technical rules are the particularity . At least within five years an ISO standard as well as an ANSI standard as well as a DIN standard should be reviewed - maybe not 20 per cent but 15 per cent of all standards will be reissued every year in the future - that means 60,000 out of 400,000 documents. And each of the revised or amended documents is connected with others. If the average number of affected documents is three or four, the data records of half of all the stored documents would have to be altered every year! Therefore, we believe in ISONET because we hope that by parallel activities the work will be shared, at least in the most im- portant countries which are from our view: the USA, France and Great Britain. The conditions and rules for an information exchange have been or are established by the ISO Committee INFCO for ISONET. Without mutually agreed rules an informa- tion exchange is not possible. Among the rules the coming ISONET Thesaurus is an important tool for an international infor- mation interchange. We in DIN started cur data bank work in assigning free keywords to each standard. Now, we have about 100,000 keywords in the computer but you would never find the rel- evant standard if you look for "subway" and the standard has been stored with the keyword "underground". So it is better to have a structured and controlled vocabulary called a thesaurus. In international information exchange a thesaurus has the bid advantage, too, that the same keyword can be given in several languages. Today, you are forced to direct questions to the DIN data bank in German. With the ISONET Thesaurus you can formulate your questions in English, the computer will translate them into German - and other- wise round. The titles of our standards are stored already in English as well as in German but not the keywords. There is no other possibility for an worldwide information interchange on stan- dards. We cannot believe that all countries will store in English their own standards information which is primarily needed for national use. Here, I see a big difference against scientific data bases. On the other hand we must be aware the use of an ISONET Thesaurus is a long-range program. Before DIN begins the reindexing of all its standards it must be sure that the Thesaurus is workable. We are, however, prepared to prove the Thesaurus and if it is a good one, to introduce it in our work, step by step. Important is that we - arid I am convinced this will include the USA - work close together now to this end because a delay will in no way shorten the implementation period. ISONET is in the interest of all trading countries but needs big efforts on all sides. 26 PRESENTATION ON THE STANDARDS COUNCIL OF CANADA AND THEIR ROLE IN INFORMATION EXCHANGE Mr. Albert A. Tunis , Standards Council of Canada The Standards Council of Canada is a cooperation established by Act of Parliament in 1S60 to foster and promote volfe untary standardization in Canada. Although financed by Parliament appropriations, it is independent with respect to its policies and programs activities. The Council itself is composed of 57 members, 41 representing a cross-section of private interests (national industrial, professional, labor, consumer interests and standards organizations) , 6 from the public service (federal) and 10 members appointed by the provincial govern- ments. It is this body that sponsors and approves the development and implementation of policies respecting voluntary standardi- zation, testing and certification of conformity with voluntary standards, and is responsible for coordinating these activi- ties in Canada. The structure within which the Council carries out its responsibilities under the Act is known as the National Standards System. Today, the System consists of a federation embracing five accredited stan- dards-writing organizations and the taro National Committees responsible for Canadian participation in international standardization work, supported by their associated advisory and coordinating committees. The Council itself is the coordinating body of the System. The accre- ditation to the System of certification organizations and testing laboratories is presently under active deliberation. The term "federation" is used advisedly to describe the National Standards System. The Standards Council Act stipulates that, in carrying out its objects and exercising its powers, the Council shall, to the great- est extent possible, "make use of the services and facilities of existing organi- zations in Canada engaged in standards formulation, testing and certification. . ." The purpose of the SCC, as indicated at the outset is to foster, coordinate and promote voluntary standardization in Canada as a weans of advancing the national economy, and to ensure effective Canadian participa- tion in the work of international standardization. The Council does not write, publish or sell standards, nor does it in- tend to engage in certification, testing or quality assurance activities. It organizes, supervises and acts as official spokesman of the "federation" which is made up of individual standards organizations either public or private. The accredited standards-^writing organizations of the National Standards System, as of this date, are: the Canadian Gas Association (CGA) ; the Canadian Govern- ment Specifications Board (CGSB) ; the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) ; the Underwriters' Laboratories of Canada (ULC) and the Bureau de normalisation du Quebec (BNQ) . Within its overall standards- writing programme, each organization operates in an agreed group of designated subject areas from which it may submit its standards to the Standards Council for approval as National Standards of Canada. Together, these five standards-writing organizations have about 5,000 standards in current issue, of which about 240 have been accepted to date by the Standards Council as National Standards of Canada. In total more than 8,000 individuals serve on the technical committees that have been established by these organizations to write standards. A number of other Canadian organizations prepare or adopt and publish voluntary stan- dards. Apart from the Associate. Committees on the National Building Code and the National Fire Code, both sponsored by the National Research Council (NRC) , none of them would appear to issue many standards which have significant implications for international trade, although this requires confirmation. Canadian participation in international standards work is an integral part of the National Standards System. The Standards Council of Canada represents Canada as the Canadian member body of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and sponsors the Canadian Committee of the In- ternational Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). 27 It also maintains liaison with and participates in the work of other inter- national organizations engaged in the formulation of voluntary standards. The Standards Council of Canada is empowered under its Act to, inter alia, "promote, in cooperation with Canadian organizations engaged in voluntary standards formu- lation, testing and certification — arrangements with organizations similarly engaged in other coun- tries for the exchange of information and for cooperation in such activi- ties" ; and "collect, translate and distribute information on standards and standardization activities — in and outside Canada." The Council has established a Standards, Information Service (SIS) which provides free of charge to any inquirer information on National Standards of Canada and stan- dards published by Canadian standards- writing organizations accredited by the Council. SIS also provides information on standards published by the national stan- dards bodies of 12 other countries, more than 60 trade, indu&rry and professional associations, as well as the International Organizati n for Standardization (ISO) and the Intern .tional Electrotechnical Ccmmissior (IEC) . Information is derived for the most part from catalogues and publications lists of these organizations, and directories and indexes of standards. It is usually limited to advice on whether or not a standard for a certain product exists, and if so, the name and address of the organization that prepared it. The Standards Information Service is located in the offices of the Standards Council in Ottawa. The service provides practical assistance to meet the national and inter- national needs of the users. It is designed to serve all users of standards, such as: On National Level . Federal, Provincial and local government agencies ; . Public and private bodies and individuals; . Standards-writing organizations and committees concerned with any aspect of standardization ; On International Level . Other members of ISONET - the interna- tional standards information network of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ; . Canadian-held Secretariats of technical committees, sub-committees or working groups of ISO and of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) ; . Canadian Committees involved in the work of ISO and IEC and their delegates to international meetings. In summary, the service assists callers in verifying the existence of standards, whether national, international or foreign, identifying the documents in question and directing the inquirer to the appropriate sources to procure documents. Technical and procedural questions relating to speci- fic standards are referenced to the organizations which prepare and publish the documents, and in the case of international and foreign standards, this involves re- ferral to the Council's International Standardization Branch in Mississauga, Ontario. The service in Ottawa has an INWATS telephone number which permits the user to call the service from any point in Canada, on a toll-free basis. To support the SIS in its work, the Council approved the establishment of an Advisory Committee on a Standards Information Ser- vice (ACSIS) . Its general terms of reference are "to develop procedures and responsibilities for the operation of the service and to advise Council on matters affecting the continuing operation and development of the service, on the basis of an ongoing analysis and assessment of infor- matioa requirements", on both national and international levels. In an important respect this Committee is a reflection of the National Standards System, in that representatives from each of the accredited standards-writing organizations make up the core of the membership. This reflects the Council's "coordination" thrust, as it is considered important to maintain close communication links between the national standards information service maintained by Council and the information services 28 which each standards organization provide for its respective constituents - clearly an indispensable "specialized" complement to the general information activities pursued by the SIS. In order to meet its obligations and respond to inquiries in the best possible way, the SIS has created and is continuing to build a documentation collection of standards and standards related documen- tation. The SIS maintains complete collections of standards published by the five accredited standards-writing organi- zations, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASIM) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) . In addition, since March 1978, the SIS has received and added to its documentation collection a copy of each ISO and IEC stan- dard as they are published. This documentation collection is available for reference and review purposes in Ottawa and to the general public. In 1977, the SIS produced its first Directory and Index of Standards, a publi- cation which presented in key-word format a compilation of all standards published by the five accredited standards-writing organizations. The first supplement to this publication was published in 1978, the second supplement in 1979. Together these three volumes provide a complete reference of Canadian voluntary standards effective December 31, 1978. A new cumulative edition of the Directory is planned for 1980. In addition to all the material included in the first three volumes, it will include all additions, revisions, and cancellations of standards published by the five accredited standards- writing organizations, during 1979. ISONET Created by ISO, ISONET is a world-wide network of standards information centres. ISONET is a completely decentralized opera- tion. Each member is responsible for collecting and indexing its own information and for making it available to others in the approved exchange format. The main purpose of ISONET, is to provide the framework and procedures to facilitate the international exchange of information about standards and technical requirements. Clearly, the Council's Standards Information Services (SIS) meets all the conditions for Type 1 membership in ISONET and indeed the SCC has already indicated its readiness to assume membership. Not only has an information activity been well established but the majority of Canadian voluntary standards have been indexed and published in such a way as to comprehend most of the mandatory elements defined in part 1.1 of the ISONET Manual. A more comprehensive reindexing of Canadian documents is foreseen as a major task for the future but as one which the SIS can assume at the appropriate time. The SIS, as previously stated is continuing to build up its data base and documentation service. Two recently completed projects will be published shortly: an index of standards and specifications issued by Federal government departments and agen- cies, representing some 2,700 documents; an index of standards referenced in Federal government acts and technical regulations. The SIS is preparing to consider two simi- lar projects on the provincial government level and is aware of the need to identify all standards developed by Canadian non- accredited standards-writing organizations. A great deal has been accomplished in a relatively short time but much remains to be done. As will be clear from the foregoing, the Council has, in effect, created a central standards information capability required for satisfying national needs for standards information and along with the lines necessary for participation in the work of ISONET. In so doing, it has created a facility which is ready to play a role in the implementation of the proposed GATT Code of Conduct for Preventing Technical Barriers to Trade. While it is somewhat early to predict how Canada would proceed to implement the Operative Provisions, Part D - Information and Assistance , dis- cussions have been held between the 29 Standards Council and the appropriate federal government department, (the Depart- ment of Industry, Trade and Commerce - ITC) at the latter' s initiative. Indeed, for- mal proposals for implementation have been prepared and published by ITC but have yet to be considered and approved by the federal government. The recent federal election in Canada has undoubtedly re- tarded consideration of the implementation document. It would be appropriate, here, to outline the form of the current propos- als, always remembering that these are only proposals which have not yet received official sanction in Canada. Section 16 of the Code would obligate the federal government to ensure , inter alia, that an enquiry point exists which is able to answer all reasonable enquiries from interested parties in other adherents re- garding technical regulations and standards adopted or proposed by federal, provin- cial, territorial or municipal governments, or regulatory bodies, or by regional bodies of which they are members or parti- cipants, and any certification systems operated or proposed by one or other of them. It would also obligate the federal government to use all reasonable means within its power to ensure that one or more enquiry points exist which would be able to answer all reasonable enquiries from interested parties in other adherents regarding standards adopted or proposed by voluntary standardizing bodies or by regional bodies of which they are members or participants, and also regarding any certification systems operated by non- governmental certification bodies or of which such bodies are members or partici- pants. Given its mandate and its current activities in the field of standards infor- mation, the Standards Council would seem to be the appropriate organization to establish and operate the Canadian Enquiry Point for the purpose of the Code. For the same reasons, the Council would also seem to be the appropriate organization to collect and provide information to inter- ested governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Canada on existing and proposed international standards and certi- fication systems, Canadian teclinical regulations, standards and certification systems, and on selected regional and foreign technical regulations, standards and certification systems which might have important implications for Canada's trade. Given both of these functions, the Council would be the logical organization to send to and receive from the GATT Secretariat notification of proposed technical regu- lations and certification systems in accordance with the provisions of the Code, acting as the agent of the federal govern- ment for this purpose. It is clear, however, that in order to function effectively as the Canadian En- quiry Point, the cooperation of various levels of government (federal, provincial and territorial) , regulatory bodies, volun- tary bodies, voluntary nongovernmental standardizing bodies and certification bodies would be essential: they would be required to provide to the Standards Coun- cil such information on their existing or proposed technical regulations, standards and certification systems as would be necessary for the appropriate functions of an Enquiry Point. The federal government and the Standards Council cannot force this issue with their respective constitu- ents, and so will have to use all reasonable means within its power to ensure agreement of all concerned to comply with the provisions of the Code that apply to their respective activities. The information and Communication System foreseen for Canada is depicted in the accompanyina two flowcharts (see Appendix 1 and 2) . In brief, the Central Enquiry Point, which would be established and operated by the Standards Council of Canada (under contract to the appropriate branch of ITC responsible for complementa- tion and administration of the Code in Canada) would perform the following ser- vices : i) answer enquiries from interested parties in other adherents re- garding technical regulations and standards adopted or pro- posed by governmental or non- governmental bodies in Canada, or by regional bodies of which they are members or participants, 30 and regarding certification systems or proposed certifi- cation systems operated by governmental or nongovernmental bodies in Canada or of which such bodies are members or participants, and regarding the location of notices pub- lished pursuant tb the Code; ii) provide information on inter- national, regional, foreign and Canadian technical regulations, standards and certification systems to standards-writing organizations and other inter- ested bodies in Canada, obtaining where necessary to perform this service, information from inter- national and regional bodies, and bodies in the territories or other adherents; and iii) send to and receive from GAIT Secretariat notifications con- cerning technical regulations and certification systems through normal government channels; i v ) arrange for the Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) or some other appropriate organization to acquire reference collec- tions of technical regulations, standards, and rules of certifi- cations systems adopted by international bodies in Canada, and reference collections of selected technical regulations, standards, and rules of certifi- cation systems adopted by governmental and nongovernmental bodies in countries with which Canada trades; v) arrange for the Translation Bureau of the Department of the Secretary of State to pro- vide translation services required to operate the Canadian Enquiry Point; and vi) sell or otherwise provide to interested parties in Canada copies of international stan- dards published by treaty or nontreaty international standardizing bodies. In addition to establishing a mechanism for handling requests from other adherents, a mechanism would be required to ensure that Canada takes advantage of the oppor- tunity which would be provided by these provisions to comment on technical regula- tions, standards certification systems proposed by other adherents that might create obstacles to Canada's trade. Since the Standards Council of Canada, in opera- ting the Canadian Enquiry Point, would be required to have information on technical regulations, standards and certification systems proposed by federal provincial, territorial and municipal government de- partments and agencies, regulatory bodies, voluntary standardizing bodies and non- governmental bodies, and to be in frequent, cxDmmunication with these bodies for this purpose, it would be the logical organi- zation to provide this consultative mechanism, acting as the agent of the federal government where proposed technical regulations or rules of certification systems are concerned. 31 APPENDIX 1 IjI it* •a " 2 "B 1 "5 • Z 1 5 a S •3 J ■= "" *1 ill g 1 1 1 1 i * 3 u > (A O "O 2 o 03 * r- t/J >- "5 c o < 5 w o> 2 a> O a: "a 1 i < a 2 c 1 _ z CO ill ill _j c 3 H 2 ||| 5 (0 sis o c Iff u CO i{! a c ill 2 ™ • < c 2 a s h- ■a 1 < c J-^9 5 1— ill f if s! is I f 5 1 a: O UL 2 0> JZ ■a < CC 4) o r. £ gu. s u. O -. 2 f £ < X o u CO 3 3 ■o I I o CD c 5 J -J u. co *lj I 1-1 i I 111 1 mi i hi .1! If! S 8 * ||| | I! 55 * | ;" i f = ? Sf I S I H 3 5 8 ■= ■*> 1 2 • * "2 <= a c -2 o| a •S 5 < j|slllll 32 APPENDIX 2 2 O < CO (0 K CO < h- u H 2 < 3 CD 5 03 5 SI o o o c w a> JC < 0) (X " O CO UL T> CO 1- r oc (O < O X u h $ 2 < s O is i lii S e « o " Z " i t 5 ^ r 3>3 . * I O 2 < ' ' 1 < 111 i: S f i-o !■ 5 3 ! 8 S i If 111 lis * ■ C 3 c : is, II s|| I I *. t ? = • fill ||| II. 8 a u _ -a -a = i i s . * • s 51 i&* 1 § 2 SSI i S&g ii= • sr s iij * 3 i .? s e 2 ca 1 2 5 «-> 4 33 A SMALL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD OF STANDARDS Mr. Gudbrand Jenssen, Norges Standard- is rings f orbund Background Norway is the least populated country in Europe with 4 million inhabitants on an area half the size of Texas. The Norwegian language can only be used in the Scandina- vian countries, and to catmunicate with the rest of the about 200 million Europeans, we have to learn foreign languages. Our home market is small and our industry is dependent on export. Of all the things I wear today, nothing bears the mark "made in Norway." This might illus- trate why we use 4,748 dollars per head in our international trade (that means import and export) while the U.S. figures are as low as 1,134 dollars per head, mainly due to your size and your self con- tained market. In your country you debate if Chrysler shall go bankrupt or be saved by the government. In my country the bankruptcy of a small com- pany with 25 employees in one of the smaller municipalities will, more often than not, be brought to the government or even direct to the prime minister for a solution. The Norwegian Standards Association, that I represent, is a private enterprise. The members are industrial and commercial or- ganizations and enterprises, the labour union and the employers' confederation, municipalities and governmental departments. The members pay an annual fep ranging from U.S. dollars 100 to 2000. Sixty per cent of the income is sales of standards, 25 per cent is a government grant, Tne Norwegian Standards - about 2000 - are voluntary, but approximately 10 per cent have been made compulsory by the government. Information and Sales We have two basic concepts for our general information activities. One is to provide information on standards and sell them, the other one is the missionary type, spread- ing the gospel of standardization. We have most requests for information on foreign standards. One third of our total sales are foreign or international stan- dards. The sales are concentrated around a limited number of countries: German standards 29 per cent, U.S. standards 26 per cent, British and International standards each about 15 per cent and Swedish standards 11 per cent. The U.S. percentage shows an interesting development f rem about 11 per cent before 1976 to 26 per cent in 1977 and 1978. The main reason is that Norway has "gone oilic" in the North Sea, and the American Petro- leum Institute's standards are used everywhere where oil drilling and produc- tion are .in question. I may mention that thanks to the API standards, Red Adair was able to stop the blow-out we had in the North Sea some time ago, because he was familiar with the construction of the valves and had his own special spare parts. Very often a request for information is accompanied with an order for the stan- dards. In urgent cases we pride ourselves that the customer will have the standards on his table within two days wherever in Norway he is situated. That is if he re- quires standards issued by ASTM, BSI, or DIN, because we have an agreement with them that allows us to copy the standards and reimburse the organization with 40 per cent of the sales price. I regret to say that some American standards organizations are working along lines that must be detrimental to their progress by requiring the money before dispatch of the standards, resulting in delivery times of 3-6 weeks. This is uni- versal for all deliveries to Europe and not only to my small country. In Europe we deliver the standards with payment with- in 30 days and we have a loss of less than 0.3 per cent, mainly due to contractors going bankrupt. To facilitate sales, we have a standing order system where a customer gets all new standards within the groups he wishes. By using EDP we effectuate orders and in- voices at very low costs and we use a mailing service for the actual dispatch. That means that our own sales staff is geared only on the daily input of orders by mail, telex or telephone. 35 The standards organizations in the Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden - cooperate in the production of a bimonthly bulletin where 20 to 30 pages are giving information on new standards only. Here we have all new standards or proposals from ASTM, ANSI, BSI, DIN, ISO, IEC, CEN and CENELEC, and the Nordic countries. Annually, we issue a Norwegian Standards Catalogue with titles in Norwegian and English. Already in 1970, EDP was used to provide manuscripts for photosetting of our Catalogue. All this information, however, is what I'll call passive information. It only gives us contact with those who are already aware of the existence of the standards and familiar with their use. I would therefore like to touch upon the second concept; our activities for getting the message about standardization out to the general public. Active Information When we believe a national or foreign standard to be important to larger groups or users, or that the standard is so special that this in itself makes it inter- esting, we issue press releases. Each year we have produced an annual review on our activities, and every year it got bigger, nicer and more expensive. Made in 6,000 copies, we realized that the impact on the society was next to nothing. In connec- tion with our General Assembly this year, we decided to make the annual review simple and cheap, and use the money saved in ad- vertising. We have also an information service linked to the active sales of stan- dards. Here we send offers for standing orders on standards within selected fields to different branches of industry, cuts from catalogues on selected topics like plastics, textiles and more. The least successful is participation in fairs and exhibitions . Relationship with the Government Even though we are not a governmental agency, official matters regarding standards or standardization are forwarded to our or- ganization. Again because we are small, I alone am the person in our organization that deals with the matters on behalf of the government in EFTA (the European Free Trade Area) , the ECE (the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) and for the GAIT. Thus for example at the annual meeting of the United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe, the Ambassador of Norway reads the text I have proposed under the agenda point standardization. On be- half of the Ministry on Commerce, I have made the extract of the GATT-agreement which is to be presented to the Parliament for ratification. I am also responsible for the Norwegian translation of the GATT- agreement. In our collaboration with the authorities we have tried to provide service without first asking for the money for doing the services. That has resulted in an atti- tude in some of the ministries that what concerns standardization is left to the Norwegian Standards Association. I do not tell this to brag about my or our capabilities or deficiencies, but to give you an impression of how closely we are knit together and depend on each other in a small country. The European Free Trade Area In the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) there was already in 1966 established a no- tification procedure where all new regulations having an impact on the inter- national trade are to be notified to all EFTA countries through the EFTA secretariat in Geneva. The EFTA countries are as you may know Portugal, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway. UK and Denmark were also EFTA-members be- fore they joined the European Community. The task of handling this notification has been left to us. That means that we on behalf of the Ministry on Commerce request comments from interested parties on noti- fications from the other EFTA-members. The Norwegian notifications and comments are often rewritten in English by us. In addi- tion there is on an informal level a possibility of commenting upon proposed Directives from the European Community through the EFTA-secretariat. In this we rely upon the Federation of Norwegian Industries and the Norwegian Export to pro- vide us with comments. 36 UN's Econcmic Commission for Europe/ ECE When the United Nations' Econcmic Commission for Europe, ECE, took up standardization in 1970, we were already in the EFTA business, and the secretariat for the Norwegian ECE activities is in our organization, with me as the secretary, again a left-hand task. In accordance with the recommendations by the ECE Governmental Officials Responsible -for Standardization Policies, the Norwegian Standards Association has been appointed the inquiry point for request for informa- tion on technical regulations and standards. That is the reason why we make and yearly revise the "Catalogue on Norwegian Techni- cal Regulations". General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, GAIT I probably don't have to state that our organization will be the inquiry point in accordance with the GATT requirements. We have for a long time advocated that the borderline between standards and technical regulations is diffuse, because what is standard in one country may be a technical regulation in another country. We will therefore incorporate in our data-base for standards the Norwegian technical regula- tions. This will be done free of charge because the number of new Norwegian tech- nical regulations in a year is negligible compared to the 200 to 300 new Norwegian standards that will be incorporated every year. ISONET For us the cooperation in ISONET has made it possible to establish the system for indexing and information retrieval that might have been very costly for us alone. The ISONET system has the advantage of being adopted by all the Nordic countries, so we will have the advantage of making a joint system. We issue already, as I mentioned before, a bimonthly list of new standards from 12 selected organizations. By pooling our national data-bases, the joint Nordic data-base will be rather im- portant for our exchange with other members of the ISONET. You know that three of the Nordic countries have created the Scandina- vian Airlines System (SAS) in order to get suf f icient strength for negotiating landing rights in the different countries. In the ISONET cooperation we will form a Nordic net with the four countries Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden together. Only by doing this do we have sufficient strength to negotiate exchange with the larger members of ISONET. Our standards catalogue has been printed by computer assistance since 1970. This year we adjusted the information in accordance with the ISONET Manual. The data-base is produced for us by the Norwegian Centre for Informatics in cooperation with the printer of the catalogue and as a byproduct of the catalogue production, the data-base is now available on-line for information retrieval in the Norwegian Centre for In- formatics. We can search in the data-base by keywords in the standards' titles as well as other registered keywords - both in Norwegian and English. The data-base is now a part of the Scandinavian information network SCANNET. I would like to stress that probably the most important part in our system is our cooperation with the Norwegian Centre for Informatics. Apart from the very small sum we pay for using its expertise to establish the data-base, we have achieved that the information is stored in the information centre itself and part of its information service. Until now standards have not been considered as literature and are not incorporated in the professional information centres. That means that people requesting information from these centres are informed about tech- nical articles published in a magazine or book by a young student or an eminent scientist, but no information is given on standards in the field. To prove it we asked the Norwegian Centre for Informatics to contact data-banks in some U.S. infor- mation centres to see if some of the following standards were included: ANSI/ASME BPV ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code ANSI/ASIM A20-78 Standard Requirements for Steel Plates for Pressure Vessels ANSI/ASTM E4-72 Standard Methods of Verification of Testing Machines 37 Basic Ionizing Radiation Symbol Documentary Reproduction - ISO Conventional Typographi- cal Character for Legibility Tests (ISO Character) SI Units and Recommendations for the Use of Their Multi- ples and of Certain Other Units ISO 1502-1978 ISO General Purpose Metric Screw Threads - Gauging ISO 1503-1977 Geometrical Orientation and Directions of Movements ISO 361-1975 ISO 435-1975 ISO 1000-1973 ISO/R 1831- 1971 Printing Specifications for Optical Character Recognition ISO 2240-1972 Photography - Determination of ISO Speed of Colour Re- versal Films for Still Photography - Sensitometric Exposure and Evaluation Method ISO 2573-1977 ISO 2604/1-1975 ISO 3290-1975 ISO 4759/1-1978 Tensile Testing Systems - Determination of K-Values Steel Products for Pressure Purposes - Quality Require- ments - Part I: Forgings Rolling Bearings - Bearing Parts - Balls for Rolling Bearings Tolerances for Fasteners - Part I - Bolts, Screws and Nuts With Thread Dia- meters Between 1,6 (inclusive) and 150 mm (in- clusive) and Product Grades A, B and C The two information centres were: The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) , U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, Virginia and the COMPENDEX produced by Engineering Index, Inc., in New York. The NTIS data-base consists of information on government sponsored re- search, development and engineering reports and may probably be excused for not incor- porating standards. The COMPENDEX, however, according to its own description, "provides the engineering and information communities with abstracted information from the world's significant engineering and technological literature. The 'EI data-base provides worldwide cover- age of the journal literature, publications of engineering societies and organizations, papers from the proceedings of conferences and selected government reports and books." The result of our inquiry shows that at least the 14 standards we asked for were not considered to be among "the world's signif- icant engineering and technological literature" . Through ISONET we have got a tool for cooperation with the professional informa- tion centres, which may contribute to establish standards as "significant engi- neering and technological literature". Until we have achieved this, we have not done our job properly. After having contacted two information centres, the Norwegian Centre for Informa- tics said we were wasting cur money and concluded that this was not the method to obtain information on standards. 38 AFNOR AND INFORMATION ABOtTT STANDARDS AND RELATED MATTER Mr. Daniel Geronimi, Association Francaise de Normalisation The Evolution of AFNOR 's Conception of Documentation The need for information on standards came at the beginning from our national custo- mers, and AFNOR center of documentation was created to answer this particular need. Then AFNOR was associated by the French government to the GATT discussions in the field of coordination of technical regula- tions . AFNOR had, from that time, the opportunity to foresee the importance of information and to follow the evolution of GATT. The first idea was to separate legal national regulations from nonlegal ones: were considered as belonging to the first category, the pure technical regulations or standards, aimed to the protection of citi- zens or environment, and to the second category the regulations including a notion of technical barrier to international trade. But very soon it appeared that this separa- tion was very difficult to establish and that there wasn't a clearly defined border between both. Rather than trying to elimi- nate nonlegal regulations it seemed easier to organize international information on all the types of documents which might set up a technical barrier: because barriers are created at least as much through a lack of information about standards as through their existence. The idea of an interna- tional information network was born. AFNOR, at that time decided, to invest in that field by automatising its center of documentation to be able to follow the evolution and to process other documents than standards. At the same time, ISONET was created among members of ISO to anticipate the interna- tional evolution of GATT discussions and to prepare each country to get ready to answer the requests of its government. AFNOR participated in the settlement of ISONET and assumed several functions: - member of the network - language agency for the French - international center for the thesaurus processing I'll mention also the name of Raymond FRONTARD, the previous General Director of AFNOR and first chairman of ISONET MANAGEMENT BOARD. The AFNOR center of documentation had to apply the guidelines established by ISONET. The Center of Documentation of AFNOR, and processing of Information The center of documentation performs mainly four kinds of services: 1. Library opened to visitors and which presents a collection of 300,000 documents: French standards, technical specifica- tions and regulations French standard type documents and related matter - international standards - foreign standards and some other impor- tant documents 2. Processing of Enquiries for internal and customers' needs. Enquiries can arrive by letter, telex, phone and soon also by terminal. They are processed by a team through manual files, catalogs, indexes or an automatic information retrieval system called NORIA. Next year the access to our automatic system NORIA will be possible on-line through a host computer connected on a national teletransmission network. NORIA NORIA has an automatic file including about 20,000 documents: - 10,000 French standards 2,000 French draft standards 4,000 French technical regulations in the field of agriculture 4,000 ISO standards 39 The structure of this file is in conformity with ISONET guidelines. All the documents are indexed with ISONET THESAURUS. Ex- changes with other countries through magnetic tapes are possible. 3. Selective Diffusion of Information consists in the circulation of specific information about standards and related matter to customers interested in a parti- cular field of standardization. 4. Translation of Foreign Standards Among other departments that deal with information , I ' 11 mention the Sales Depart- ment which manages orders for any kind of national and international standard and standard type documents, the Public Rela- tions Department responsible for the issuing of the yearbook, it's monthly updating, and last but not least, a new department called NOREX. The aim of NOREX is to help exporters to solve their problems in relation with standards and technical regulations. It has been created by reference to its big brother the TECHNICAL HELP TO EXPORTERS that remains our guide. After the very good speech we had yesterday on Technical Help to Exporters, I'll just insist on the differences between "THE" and NOREX. If "THE" is an integrated system including a documentation center, a technical staff, and a laboratory, NOREX on the contrary is a decentralized organization working with the documentation center of AFNOR, a small staff of advisers and laboratories independent from AFNOR, and of the French Trade Center. NOREX as "THE" processes enquiries on foreign standards and regulations, analysis of differences between foreign and French standards but its first know-, ,,.. M . I ........I M 11. Contract/Grant No. 12. SPONSORING ORGANIZATION NAME AND COMPLETE ADDRESS (Street. City, State. ZIP) ANSI 1430 Broadway New York, N.Y. 10018 13. Type of Report & Period Covered Final 14. Sponsoring Agency Code |„- n, .minimi ',: 15. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-600073 I | Document describes a computer program; SF-185, FIPS Software Summary, is attached. 16. ABSTRACT (A 200-word or lesa factual summary of moat significant information. If document includes a significant bibliography or literature survey, mention it here.) The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and NBS have been working cooperative ly with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to provide United States input to the development of an International Standards Information Network called ISONET. Symposium participants had an opportunity to learn more about existing international standards information systems as well as the plans for the further development of ISONET. Through question and answer discussions, participants were able to learn about new developments in U.S. trade policy, especially those policies pertaining to standards and certification systems. 17. KEY WORDS (six to twelve entries; alphabetical order; capitalize only the first tetter of the first key word unless a proper name separated by semicolons) ISO; ISONET symposium; proceedings; standards information 18. AVAILABILITY [X} Unlimited | | For Official Distribution. Do Not Release to NTIS E Order From Sup. of Doc, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402 | | Order From National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, VA. 22161 19. SECURITY CLASS (THIS REPORT) UNCLASSIFIED 20. SECURITY CLASS (THIS PAGE) UNCLASSIFIED 21. NO. OF PRINTED PAGES 61 22. Price $3.50 USCOMM-DC •fr U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OF1CE :1980 O-311-046 (123} NBS TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS PERIODICALS JOURNAL OF RESEARCH— The Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards reports NBS research and develop- ment in those disciplines of the physical and engineering sciences in which the Bureau is active. These include physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and computer sciences. 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