Unleashing the digital power of international standards
This joint programme by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and ISO will drive the digital evolution of international standards to address the needs of citizens, societies and economies.
What are SMART standards?
SMART refers to the formats, processes, and tools necessary for a user (human and technology-based) to interact with standards. These digital solutions serve the needs of all stakeholders, from industry, regulators, and end users to society as a whole:
- Manufacturers will integrate SMART standards into their entire product and service lifecycles to accelerate development at a lower cost and ensure compliance with the latest applicable regulations.
- Regulators will be part of the SMART ecosystem to ensure consistency between market driven standardization and policy guided regulations.
- Standards developers will focus on content creation in a much more effective way by using advanced digital tools automating processes over the whole development lifecycle.
- End users will benefit from digital standards whose content is tailored to their needs and constantly maintained up to date.
Existing formats such as paper and pdf will always remain available. Yet step by step, international standards will evolve to also meeting the growing digital needs of stakeholders and society.
Why do we need SMART international standards?
As technology continues to evolve, so too will the ways the world does business, collaborates, and consumes information. By 2025, tens of billions of smart devices will be collecting, analysing, and sharing data to allow innovative products and services to better meet the needs of citizens, societies, and economies.
Standards developed today by the IEC and ISO are focused on humans as primary users. While these standards can be read by computers, they cannot be interpreted and therefore comprehensively processed by machines.
The next generation of IEC and ISO standards will provide tailored and up-to-date content at the right time to the relevant users - whether they are humans, computers, complex machines, or small intelligent devices. IEC and ISO standards will be embedded into product development supply chains and become much more integrated into everyone’s daily life.
Here’s why the IEC and ISO are best placed to implement this new way of developing and distributing standards:
- Their long history of delivering trusted, high-quality standards;
- Their collaborative and consensus driven way of working.
How will IEC and ISO lead the way to SMART standards?
The IEC/ISO SMART programme works on:
- Identifying and understanding the needs of standards users and how SMART can address them.
- Exploring new business models supporting the distribution and commercialization of SMART standards and identifying related legal implications.
- Specifying and piloting the technical architecture supporting SMART standards and integrating it into the existing production lifecycle.
- Assessing the impact of SMART standards on how conformity assessment will be undertaken.
- Developing communications materials to engage with the IEC and ISO communities.
SMART will ensure that IEC and ISO products and services remain the most attractive and relevant to markets and societies, today and tomorrow. Join us in this journey to help shape the future of international standards!
Meet the regional SMART champions
SMART champions are members of the ISO community who serve as resource persons, within their respective regions.
Nelson Al Assal Filho is Director of Standardization at Brazil’s standards association, ABNT, and has served with the organization for almost 20 years. In this role, he coordinates the country’s standardization programme involving more than 25 national committees and 25 000 experts. Prior to this, as Head of the IT department, he led ABNT through its digital transformation. He also chaired the ISOlutions Group from 2010 to 2021 and has helped ISO members in many developing countries implement a digital value chain for standards development and sales. A passionate advocate of standards, Nelson sits on the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB) since 2021 and is a member of the Strategic Advisory Group (ISO/ITSAG) to the ISO Council concerning digital matters and projects.
Ruggero Lensi has been the Director General of the Italian Standardization Organization (UNI) since 2017. He joined UNI in 1995, holding the positions of Head of the Standardization Department between 2000 and 2003, Technical Director until 2010 and Director of External Relations, New Business and Innovation until February 2017. In his current role, he is responsible for digital processes, sustainable human resource management and for enhancing the UNI brand. Ruggero represented UNI for ten years on the CEN Technical Board (BT), where he served as Convenor of several working groups. More recently, he also acted as CEN VP Technical and Chair of the CEN/BT (2018-2021). He was also the Italian member of the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB) and is currently the IEC/ISO SMART Champion for Europe and Central Asia. Ruggero holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic University in Milan.
Jason Lim is CEO and co-founder of Stendard, a software-based consultancy for compliance and standardization. A strong advocate for standards, Jason started his career as a regulator in Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority and later as the regulatory/quality assurance manager of a Singapore-based technology accelerator. His venture as an entrepreneur began in 2016 as a quality and regulatory consultant. Passionate about making the compliance process easier, he believes in using technology to implement standards efficiently and affordably, empowering companies to compete on a level playing field and accelerating global growth. A standards partner of Enterprise Singapore, Jason is now also the Asia-Pacific champion for IEC/ISO SMART, playing a pivotal role in driving the digital transformation of standards.
