The International Electrotechnical Commission

The International Electrotechnical Commission

The ISO 27000 standard was developed by The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and International Standards Organization (ISO). The ISO 27000 is an industry standard and internationally accepted for information security management.

The ISO 27000 family provides an extensive list of requirements and codes of practice. Of which, ISO 27001 is a specification that sets out the specific requirements that must be followed that a companies information security management system (ISMS) can be audited and certified against. All the other ISO 27000 standards are codes of practice. Therefore ISO 27002, 27003, 27004, 27005, and 27006 will provide non-mandatory but considered as best practice guidelines that companies can choose to follow as required.

With the surge of hack’s and website breaches that have involved many large organizations and their customers information being obtained and leaked has cause for many to realize that no matter how protected you think you are it may require much more consideration than previously thought. This is why there is legislation and requirements in place to help protect that data and all consumers from having their data stolen. As such all companies dealing with sensitive information must comply with the following regulations.

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• International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee
• Why Do We Have Standards?
• IEEE Standard Test Methods

IEEE Standard Test Methods

IEEE Standard Test Methods

The IEEE has assumed a leadership position in the development of nanoelectronics standards. The factors driving the development of these standards are the need for reproducibility of results, international collaboration, and a common means of communicating across traditional scientific disciplines. This activity is driven by the IEEE Nanotechnology Council (NTC), an interdisciplinary group with members representing 21 IEEE societies. NTC is currently involved in a variety of standards efforts and activities.

“IEEE Standard Test Methods for Measurement of Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes” was one of the first nanotechnology standards with which the IEEE became involved. This effort was driven by the need for a way to reproduce and prove lab results on a much larger scale and to establish common metrics and a minimum requirement for reporting. The standard’s main purpose is to establish methods for the electrical characterization of carbon nanotubes and the means of reporting performance and other data. These methods enable the creation of a suggested reporting standard that are used from the research phase through manufacturing as the technology is developed. Moreover, the standard recommends the necessary tools and procedures for validation.

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• The International Electrotechnical Commission
• Why Do We Have Standards?
• International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee

Why Do We Have Standards?

Why Do We Have Standards?

Ever been to China? Beijing? How about the Great Wall? OK, how about Tiananmen Square? OK, OK, so you have been everywhere. Well, I know some place you haven’t been: The Great Hall Of the People.

This is a place where very few people outside China get to say “I’ve been there”! Well, I have not only been there but in the presence of Li Peng. So, you ask “who is Li Peng”? Now your lack of international wisdom has slipped off the edge. He was the Acting Premier 1987 – 9, Premier 1989 – 98 of China. THE china. Now you are entitled to ask the question, “what were you doing there and what was Li Peng doing there to grace you with such an honor?”

Now I can get down to the business of this discussion. It turns out that Li Peng as a young man studied engineering. Electrical Engineering, no less. As he grew older and found himself in leadership positions he moved away from engineering but never lost his enthusiasm for technology. Which is what brought him to the Great Hall on this unusual occasion. It was the year that China was selected the host nation for the annual meetings of the IEC. OK, you say, so what is the IEC? Answer; the IEC or International Electrotechnical Commission is one of the most significant standards organizations in the world. Its international offices are based in Geneva, Switzerland and it is comprised of many committees in many technical areas for setting both voluntary and mandatory technical standards. My committee for which I was the USA delegate was TC-100 Audio, Video and Multimedia Systems and Equipment. There were,of course, many other IEC committees in attendance. Since the Great Hall can seat 5,000 people in banquet style we really only occupied a portion of the 7,000 square foot building.

Li Peng was very gracious and explained his personal interest in attending this event because it marked the beginning of China to become part of the global standardization activities. He said China was honored to have his country selected for the annual international meeting of the IEC.

Well, making a long story short, the Chinese did participate openly and in great numbers during the TC committee meetings and in lesser numbers the following year when the annual plenary meetings were held in Stockholm. But, they stayed true to their word and tried very hard to remain active in the Technical Committees and Subcommittees in many fields of endeavor.

Let me digress momentarily. The reason for bringing the whole Chinese adventure to your attention is to talk about technical creativity and innovation. An experience that I witnessed while in Beijing was a big eye opener for me. It took place while in a subcommittee discussing measurement standards for audio and sound system equipments. One of the Chinese delegates in attendance invited myself and Lenoard Feldman, another US delegate, to his laboratory where he was working on audio for the Chinese olympics committee. We went. Our guest was professor of electrical engineering at Beijing University of Technology. The year was 1999. The desktop PC was just getting universal support and application in universities all over the world. This good professor explained that he had been commissioned to develop an very power audio reproduction system for use in outdoor, indoor and large stadium venues.

Their job was to design and manufacture a very powerful amplifier system and horn loudspeaker unit. He had convinced his leaders at the university that student level workers would not be sufficient in their experience to do these kinds of design and testing tasks. He was therefore requested (or should we day ordered) to present to the government finance committee his projected needs for his project. His face went into extreme pain and/or excitement, we couldn’t tell, as he explained the committee told him “No” to his request for 10 advanced engineers. Further, he went on, while he was prepared to be beaten down the answer came back “No, No, you must recognize this is an important national project you must take these 100 engineers we have waiting in our technology que”.

So, there we were looking down a long dark hallway with PhD level engineering students lined up with little desks, Dell computers, signal generators and oscilloscope they had purchased from USA, all busy working on their amplifier and speaker designs. Our guest plead with us to give him ideas on how to keep his army of very bright engineers challenged and busy with his narrowly focused project goals.
Thus, this was my experience in Beijing, China in November of 1999. I did visit the Great Wall of China while there and went on to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia thereafter where other interesting experienced were had.

Now, back to technology. The above account pointed out that the entire purpose of my trip on that occasion was for furthering international standards. And, in particular, those relating to audio, video and multimedia related areas. My question to you is this: Why do we need standards in high tech areas? The answer, you say, is obvious; we need ways of connecting, communicating, exchanging components, measuring and ranking of systems for the betterment of the local, national and global business development not to mention the needs of the users.

Good answers! It is all true and you can get a huddle of standards engineers together in one room and, unlike economists who each have a different idea, they will come up with very similar ideas and conclusions substantiating the need for uniformity in the field of technology. They would all point to examples such as satellite systems, internet, mobile telephone usage across country lines and so on. It is very convincing.

But, I am not so sure about all this. For years we believed that it was necessary to allow a regulated telephone monopoly to run the nations electrical communications system so that every community could communicate easily beyond its borders. We thought it was necessary to have one television standard to deliver entertainment programs to the viewers. You can think of other examples that have been made into mandatory standards. But, now, during the past few years we have learned that there are many voice communication systems working just fine, there are many ways of bringing entertainment video into the home. Cable has nearly replaced terrestrial broadcasting and the Internet has taken over much of the point to point communications – and AT&T is no longer a long lines carrier company but more like a cellular system provider. You get the point, don’t you?

Here is my thought. In the early stage of new technology it is not desireable to standardise because the development is not complete and the innovation must continue until economies of scale for both ideas and product development has been reached. When mature it is nice to have interchangeability, uniform systems, forward and backward compatibility and such. This, where there is open competition and many makers of the products will accelerate the results and success for everyone engaged. But we don’t want to develop standards until it is for certain the technology has reached that mature phase. There is one big exception to the above strategy. Proprietary technology; this is when one company (and its licensees) have a propriety technology and business plan that leaves them on their own to develop the market by themselves. Apple is a good modern-day example of a company with that kind of goal in mind.

What do you think?

Cleggsan has been an Electrical and Electronics Engineer for over 45 years. He is currently an author of a weblog where he writes regularly about Digital Oscilloscopes. He is a consultant to the electronics industry.

He is a Life Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, Life Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and past Chairman of the IEC TC-100 Standards Committee for Audio, Video and Audiovideo Engineering.

Related posts

• The International Electrotechnical Commission
• International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee
• Grace you with such an honor
• IEEE Standard Test Methods

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee

The IEEE has assumed a leadership position in the development of nanoelectronics standards. The factors driving the development of these standards are the need for reproducibility of results, international collaboration, and a common means of communicating across traditional scientific disciplines. This activity is driven by the IEEE Nanotechnology Council (NTC), an interdisciplinary group with members representing 21 IEEE societies. NTC is currently involved in a variety of standards efforts and activities.

“IEEE Standard Test Methods for Measurement of Electrical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes” was one of the first nanotechnology standards with which the IEEE became involved. This effort was driven by the need for a way to reproduce and prove lab results on a much larger scale and to establish common metrics and a minimum requirement for reporting. The standard’s main purpose is to establish methods for the electrical characterization of carbon nanotubes and the means of reporting performance and other data. These methods enable the creation of a suggested reporting standard that are used from the research phase through manufacturing as the technology is developed. Moreover, the standard recommends the necessary tools and procedures for validation.

It took more than two years to complete development of the IEEE 1650 standard, which was approved in December 2005. Since then, other standards bodies have been busy developing their own standards. In addition, the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) has been exploring support for the adoption of IEEE 1650 by several international bodies. For example, in collaboration with the NTC, IEEE-SA pursued a dual-logo agreement for the 1650 standard with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Technical Committee 113, Working Group 3 Performance of Nanomaterials for Electrotechnical Components and Systems. Last November, the IEC TC 113 decided to adopt ANSI/IEEE Std1650 -2005 as a dual logo.

Related posts

• IEEE Standard Test Methods
• Why Do We Have Standards?
• The International Electrotechnical Commission