Updated January 9, 2023
ISO Certification
The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is a global non-governmental organization comprised of national standards organizations that develop and disseminates a wide range of industrial, commercial, and proprietary technical standards. Its members are representatives from different national standards organizations. The organization’s abbreviated name, ISO, is derived from the ancient Greek word so, which means equal or equivalent, and is not an acronym. Since the organization’s acronyms would diverge in different languages, its founders chose the abbreviation ISO for its name.
Full Form of ISO
The International Organization for Standardization is the full form of ISO. This global organization sets international standards and is an independent, nonprofit, non-governmental organization. An item or service with an ISO certification is respected and regarded as safe to use on a global scale. As a result, you may purchase an ISO-approved product with confidence that it was created honestly.
History of ISO
The International Union of the National Standardizing Associations, which ran from 1928 to 1942, was replaced by ISO. A conference on international standards was held in 1946 by ISA members and the U.n Standards Coordinating Committee. The next year, ISO was established as a non-governmental organization due to its work. In 1951, ISO released Standard Base Temperatures for Industrial Length Measurements, the organization’s first standard. The current name of the standard is ISO 1:2016. The ISO has released over 24,000 standards as of 2021.
ISO claims that ISO is never an acronym. It is a word derived from the Greek word isos, which means “equal,” and is the source of the prefix iso-, which may be found in a wide range of phrases, including isometric and isonomy (of equal measure or proportions). The term “International Organization for Standardization” (ISO) is used to refer to organizations all around the world, preventing the myriad of abbreviations that would come from translating “International Organization for Standardization” across the various national languages of members. Regardless of the nation, the organization is typically abbreviated as ISO.
How are ISO Specifications Created?
According to the International Organization for Standardization, the creation of standards is a six-stage process. The following are the stages:
1. Proposal Phase
When business associations or consumer advocacy organizations submit a request, the process of creating a new standard officially begins. A new standard is necessary or not by the relevant ISO committee.
2. Preliminary Phase
To create a working draught of the new standard, a working group has to form. The functioning group comprises experts in the field and representatives from the industry; after the draught is accepted, the working firm’s parent committee chooses which stage will follow.
3. Committee Phase
Participants of the parental committee review and offer feedback on the draught standard during this optional phase. The next step can be once the committee agrees on the draft’s technical content.
4. Inquiry Phase
At this point, the draught standard is referred to as a Draft International Standard (DIS). Members of ISO receive it and are asked to comment before voting on it. The DIS is published as a standard by ISO if accepted without undergoing technical modifications. If not, the approval stage is reached.
5. Approving Phase
The proposed standard is distributed to ISO members as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS). They cast votes to endorse the new norm.
6. Publication Phase
The FDIS is released as an authorized international standard if ISO members agree. Members of ISO who participate vote to approve standards. At least two voting members must agree with a standard, and no more than one-fourth of them can disagree.
What Does ISO Certification or Approval Mean?
When a factory has an ISO credential, it represents that the manufacturing procedure, documentation procedure, administration procedure, and other elements are of good benchmark and reliability. And over 20000 international standards have been published just by this organization. You can discover a wide range of industries in this number, including technology, food security, healthcare, agriculture, etc.
As we learned the Full Form of ISO, we also see that ISO also releases technical documents, technical data available to the public requirements, technological systems, and guides in addition to standards. By establishing international standards, the ISO significantly facilitates trade between nations. These provisions are curated to assure goods and services’ grade, dependability, and security. These requirements guarantee that certified goods meet the final user and consumer requirements.
