onsdag den 10. september 2008

How are the standards being produced?



The standards are produced in "Working Groups" (WG) arranged by Cenelec. To become a member of a WG you must be a member of the National standardization Committee (NC). A company can register to become a member of the NC by paying a fee.

Once your company has paid the fee for the NC, you can enrol into a WG of your interest.
Each standard is - in principal - updated every 5'Th year. This means every standard has almost all the time an affiliated active WG, working on the next update.

It can be risky for the major players on the market to ignore the work in the WGs. - Imagine, a major supplier is developing a new Railway safety product (e.g. an interlocking system, a train,..). It takes 5 years and cost 15 millions Euro. Once the Company has finished the product, it realizes, a WG in the meantime has released an updated standard, which the product does not satisfy.

Every WG has an appointed chairman who organizes the work. Typically the group meets every 3'rd month in a major city in Europe. Everyone is seated around a table; the text is projected on a large screen. The chairman controls the keyboard; the standard is written as a "One-text negotiation". For example the chairman asks: "Which key documents are necessary in order to implement an adequate Safety Management System?"

Typically participants could be: Siemens, Bombardier, Alstom, Westinghouse etc. Other participants could be the Infrastructure owners, the Safety Authorities: French EPSF, German EBA; independent Assessors like DNV and Tüv; and the Advisors like Atkins.

Once the WG releases a version it must be formally be approved by the national committes.

If the WG agrees about a subject, it is formulated clearly in the standard; if they disagree, the standard will only contain some vague superior sentences like: "An adequate mitigation activity should be established...".

In the daily work you can then try to interpret and discuss, what is actually "adequate"?

Hopefully, this blog can inspire the interpretations.

Next chapter >> 7.2 Revision of the EN 5012X suite

2 kommentarer:

Anonym sagde ...

Safety authority in France is not SNCF (=train operator) but EPSF (http://www.securite-ferroviaire.fr/fr/)

Troels Winther sagde ...

Thank you - it has been changed.