Question

Collect information about ONE certificate of standardisation

Answer 1

Introduction

Standardisation and certification in the field of safety and health at work (OSH) have undergone a continuous development in recent years, closely related to the development of the specific legislation and the state of art.

This article contains a description of the processes of standardisation and of the role of standards in ensuring a clear definite level of quality or safety of the products. There are presented: definition and classification of standards, standardisation organisations, activities included in evaluation of conformity and certification (of products, processes, services or training) and the significance of CE marking of conformity.

Standardisation

Definitions

The term “standard” has been used and is still used in some countries related to the conditions for safety at work [1] or to the skills of employers and good behavior of people, but also related to characteristics (dimensions, forms, physical or chemical properties, etc) of products. The significance of the term “standard” used to be: a generally accepted document that provides rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, whatever the provider of the document is (tradition, a manufacturer, a governmental authority or a standardisation association)[2].

The first standards appeared during the Industrial Revolution with the need to make interchangeable part and dealt with sizes for screws, nuts bolts and other threaded fasteners, then pipe sizes or shoe size. In the late 19th century safety standards appeared, prepared by governmental authorities in United States of America, England. At the beginning of the 20th century standardisation organisations have been formed.

In the late years, in order to avoid missunderstanding, the international standards organisations made efforts to establish a clear terminology making the difference between the rules depending the provider, as [2]:

- normative document = ‘document (any medium with information recorded on or in it ) providing rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results; it covers standards, technical specifications, codes of practice and regulations’;