The Central Technical Commission followed the indications of the Chair Committee, in the following lines of intervention. - Following the provisions issued to UNI under the federation conventions, the new regulation for implementing standardisation activities was drawn up in which - for the first time - tasks, duties and behaviour of the UNI technical structures and Federated Bodies are unified. The new text, in force since January 1st, is divided into a central part with general joint applicability and a section of specific annexes for the UNI technical commissions.
- The "Food Processing", "Environment", "Quality management and support techniques", "Services", "Safety" and "Conformity assessment" technical commissions were appointed to begin a specific standardisation activity following the study of the SINCERT technical regulations (TR) to implement standardisation principles, organising the work among four mixed working groups, in which SINCERT also participates.
- SICURIS, UNI’s Strategic and Coordination Body concerning Health and Safety, continued its work under the coordination of INAIL and with the participation of Confindustria, the trade unions, a Vice Chairman of the CTC and a representative of the Federated Bodies, to deal with the following issues:
- examination of the standardisation projects being studied in the field of health and safety at work;
- examination of the regulations in force, with particular attention to those issued prior to 1994, before the application of Italian Legislative Decree 626/1994; the assessment of the lists led to the identification of 18 standards which need to be reviewed by the competent technical bodies in terms of content;
- identification of standards issues following the issue of Italian Legal Decree 123/2007: various projects were identified, including the analysis of psycho-social risk factors in the workplace.
- The CTC monitored the works progress of the standardisation project "Management system for health and safety in the workplace - Terminology and requirements" which carried out a public inquiry during the first part of the year and received substantial comments; the attention of the "Safety" TC was drawn to these issues in order to have a new version drawn up. It was agreed that the approval procedure needs to be completed as soon as possible, in order to offer a valid contribution to improving safety in the workplace, in line with the provisions of article 30 of legal decree 81/2008. The new version approved by the "Safety" commission was subjected to a second public inquiry in November.
- Support to the development of new standards issues was increased: societal and citizen security, clinical risks, smart house services for the disabled, equal opportunities and nuclear energy. More specifically:
- following similar initiatives carried out by ISO and CEN, the Technical Management organised a round table to discuss the issues of citizen security and civil protection. Private parties, public administrations and professionals showed great interest in a potential future national standardisation activity concerning the management of emergency situations (natural disasters, acts of terrorism and vandalism), border control (ports, airports, cross-border energy networks), urban crime and company security. This pre-standardisation round table led to the constitution of a new technical commission called "Societal and citizen security";
- due to the increase in interest and the development of the issue of equal opportunities, the "Corporate Social Responsibility" working group was transformed into a technical commission;
- as far as nuclear energy is concerned, a coordinated action is underway with the Italian Ministry of Economic Development to assure that the re-launch of Italy’s nuclear industry is supported by a set of system and component standards drawn up with the agreement of the UNI commissions and Federated Bodies.
- The Technical Management also continued with the review of the standards catalogue: having examined the first list of almost 2,000 national standards in force, published for more than 30 years, prior to 1979, 1,283 were withdrawn. In the first part of the year, the standards published prior to 1991 were examined, following the same principle of verifying their validity. At the end of the year, the review of the remaining standards began, concerning those published prior to 2003, with the aim of aligning the review following the practice of five-year reviews from 2009.
STATE OF PLAY...
Here below is a summary of the main standards issues dealt with in 2008 in the technical management field, divided into the relative divisions. CONSUMER GOODS AND MATERIALS
CONSTRUCTION
ENTERPRISE AND SOCIETY
MECHANICAL  Food products
2008 saw the publication of the UNI EN ISO 22005 standard on traceability systems in the food processing chain: an important aspect of food safety born from two Italian standards which has become a worldwide reference. The issue aroused the interest of many institutions with which information events and dialogue have been planned for 2009.
During the year, the sector also developed standardisation activities (which began in 2007) in a segment of the chain which has not yet been explored under UNI: catering outside the home, understood as the commercial catering sector which operates in public and collective establishments. The first issue of interest was the preparation of a national standard on the minimum requirements for drawing up tenders and tender regulations, technical specifications and tender documents for catering services outside the home, to be followed by another on the methods for drawing up menus in public catering establishments.
Two draft standards on primary production were concluded during 2008: the first defines fresh ready-for-consumption fruits and vegetables (also known as IV range products, one of the most important new developments in the fruit and vegetable market over the past few years) which provides the elements for defining the production process from the procurement of the produce to the sale to the end user; the second is the new edition of UNI 11233 "Integrated Production Systems in the food processing chain - General principles for the design and implementation of vegetable processing chains", reviewed to strengthen its support value complementary to the legislation thanks to the addition of three appendices which provide elements to design and implement an integrated production process respectively in the fruit, vegetable and extensive cultivation chains. Finally, the relationship between food and packaging is an area of standardisation of increasing interest; in this sector, important works were concluded in 2008 on the qualification of packaging for typical and traditional Italian products: the draft standard UNI 11311 “Food conditioning - Requirements for expanded synthetic corks for drink and food liquid conditioning” was drawn up, based on the need to govern the technical and commercial relations between suppliers and clients.
Health
This sector saw new standardisation works concerning clinical risk and clinical risk management in health. As this is a new and very complex issue, at the proposal of the Central Technical Commission studies began on a terminology dictionary: the concepts linked to risk and clinical risk are in fact often confusing and inappropriate. To improve understanding and accept the relative contents, it was necessary to start with the study of a clinical risk dictionary (in cooperation with the Ministry of Health) which will lay the foundations for dealing with the issue also with a view to studying the quality aspects of healthcare organisations, including clinical risk.
At international level, the review of Directive 93/42 concerning medical equipment led to the acceleration of the review process of all the unified standards in the sector in order to bring them into line with the new essential requirements introduced by the directive: the most affected fields are sterilisation, anaesthetic and pulmonary ventilation equipment, medical gas distribution systems, surgical and orthopaedic systems, biocompatibility of medical and optical devices. The results of this large-scale project will only be seen during 2009, when the new European legislation comes into force. The "Biomedical technologies" commission cooperated in the study of the new international standard on clinical surveys of medical equipment, (UNI EN ISO 14155), a strategic aspect needed to assess equipment, and made obligatory under the new directive.
At national level, the review of standard UNI 11100 "Acceptance tests and periodical checks of medical gas systems", was begun to bring it into line with the new European standards EN 7396 concerning the safety of medical gas distribution systems: in particular, the new standard will have the task of better defining the technical aspects of systems which affect the healthcare organisation in charge of the management of the gas distribution system. Materials and furniture
2008 saw intense activity in the “Rubber” commission, which not only worked on the review and updating of national standards but increased its involvement internationally, above all concerning the interface activities for the ISO/TC 45 technical committee. The demonstration of this is the proposal of the working group dealing with physical-mechanical tests for a new draft ISO standard concerning the viscosity control of elastomers by rheometer: this activity involves the implementation of inter-laboratory tests on a worldwide scale, with the involvement of 20 laboratories, from about ten countries.
Under the “Leather, skins and leather goods” commission various national standards were published to support the needs of the tanning sector, also in niche markets such as the production of leather for saddle making or chamois leathers for drying. At European level, on the other hand, the activities of the CEN/TC 289 “Leather” technical committee, managed since the early 1990s by Italy, were dedicated to the punctual finalisation of test methods to determine the presence of chemical substances that are potentially hazardous for the end user in leather goods, footwear, clothing and other leather items.
News in the furniture field concerns urban furnishings: the standard UNI 11306 “Benches - Safety requirements and test methods” was completed, the first in a series of possible other standards concerning urban furnishing items. This standard covers benches integrated with other elements (such as flower boxes, screens, baskets and the like) and aims to clarify terminology, safety aspects, resistance of materials and finishes from the design phase onwards. Cultural heritage
In the field of cultural heritage, the interfacing works with the CEN/TC 346 "Conservation of cultural property" continued: the Italian experts are project leaders for several documents which derive from the existing UNI standards in the sector. Nationally, activities also achieved important results, including the publication of UNI 11186 on test methods for exposure to frost and defrosting cycles for treated and untreated natural and artificial stone materials and UNI 11305 which lays down the guidelines for the full description of historic mortar and to assess its state of preservation, indicating the parameters which must be considered. UNICHIM, UNIPLAST and UNITEX
The technical bodies of these Federated Bodies continued to adopt European standards in their respective fields through the work of the technical committees, and also drew up some national standards with the aim of providing tools for further study of issues partially dealt with at CEN and ISO levels. In particular, UNIPLAST drew up and published several documents concerning the welding of plastic materials and the requirements and test methods for post-consumer, industrial waste and mechanical recycling residue recycled plastic materials. UNICHIM, on the other hand, developed a set of guidelines relative to the preparation of specifications and technical sheets for paints, and developed some technical specifications for petrol-based products used for heating and in cars. In the textiles sector, UNITEX followed the development of an important standard concerning the safety of children’s clothing: standard UNI EN 14682 specifies the requirements for cords and laces in children’s clothing, including fancy dress costumes and ski suits up to 14 years of age, according to national statistics on accidents and incidents caused by these elements. Following the renewal of the company appointments, the Vice Chairman UNI Corrado Bertelli was appointed Chairman of the Construction Committee - the body which plays a steering and coordination role in the national standardisation strategies in this sector - for the three year period 2008-2010.
Following the important evolutions in the legislative and standardisation panorama - both nationally and at European level - in particular concerning the review of the current regulations on public works and tenders, the progressive application of Directive 89/106 concerning construction products, the conversion of structural Eurocodes from ENV to EN, as well as the issue of New Technical Standards for Construction, the issues of strategic importance for the construction sector that the standardisation world is currently dealing with are: - sustainable building, one of the "lead markets" identified by the European Commission as a source of development for Europe over the coming years, to which the CEN responded by establishing CEN/BT WG 206 "CEN contribution to the EC lead market initiative on sustainable construction";
- energy efficiency in buildings, through the completion of the relevant standardisation framework to support the implementation of new national and EC legal provisions;
- the relationship between innovation and standardisation, for the effective transfer of know-how and the results of research in technical standards, to consolidate the progressive evolution of the state of the art;
- inter-operationality, to allow the convergence of basic standards to assure the best exchange of information in the design, construction and management of buildings (BIM - Building Information Model, IFC...), and the performance matrix standards on sustainable development of buildings;
- the review of Directive 89/106, which - confirming its founding principles - will see an increase in the legal value of EC legislative provisions with the issue of a regulation, which should come into force in 2012;
- accessibility of the built environment, the works of which have already begun internationally under ISO/TC 59/SC 16 “Accessibility and usability of the built environment” finding new strength in the issues of a specific mandate to CEN by the European Commission.
Acoustics in building
The standardisation works aiming to define a reference standard framework to support current national legislation, still awaiting implementation provisions including design and construction criteria, continued also with the aim of providing minimum elements of uniformity for building requirements. This activity was carried out through the review of the technical report on the forecast of acoustic performance of buildings, which provides simplified calculation methods and technical construction solutions for the correct acoustic qualification of buildings as a whole, and the development of new standards on the acoustic classification of buildings and integrated thermo-acoustic design. Construction "barcodes"
This issue met with great interest from the main operators in the construction chain, confirming the widespread need among operators to have a reference standard which harmonises every resource, process and element in the construction chain through a system of unique codes. In order to provide a more versatile and useable standardisation tool, the draft UNI standard has modified the purpose from "coding" to "coding criteria": the future standard will not therefore directly establish the codes but rather the general criteria to be respected by anyone developing the codes within their own field of competency. The framework can be completed by technical specifications to support the criteria for naming, describing (qualification and quantification), gathering and filing technical information, inter-operationality among software. Regulation of the financing procedure for real estate operations
In the Construction Committee, the operators in the construction chain agreed on the need to define objective criteria and parameters to refer to during real estate financing operations, through which it is possible to provide credit institutes with indicators on the regularity of the general progress of the project and, more specifically, to assure the company the possibility to have the financing instalments granted. In response to this need, it was agreed on the need to activate a special working group with the task of defining a regulatory framework through the preparation of one or more voluntary technical standards as regulatory tools for the sector which lay down, in principle, criteria and parameters without imposing solutions a priori and without replacing the responsibility of the single operators in the sector, rather valorising their competences. This is done with the widest possible involvement of the interested parties, an indispensible condition to assure the consensual basis, as well as the value of the contents (on which the effectiveness of a voluntary standardisation tool such as the UNI standards depends) with which it will be possible to manage, organise and process all the elements needed for correct control procedures. Fire prevention
Over the past few years, the "Active fire prevention" commission has seen a constant increase in its activities, concerning the preparation of standards for the design, installation and operation of all fire prevention systems available on the market today. As far as the system standards are concerned, the specification UNI CEN/TS 14972 was published on water mist systems as well as the UNI EN 15004 series concerning the physical and design properties of gas-based fire extinguishing systems, which replaced the corresponding series UNI ISO 14520; at the same time, through the publication of UNI 11280, the series of standards concerning state-of-the-art maintenance of systems was completed, and the review of UNI 9795 on detection systems continued. Codes of practice
Concerning water systems, the three parts of UNI EN 806 "Specifications concerning plumbing systems inside buildings delivering water for human consumption" were published together with the review of UNI 9182 on design, testing and management criteria. UNI 11322, concerning instructions for the design, laying and maintenance of stone flooring, was also finalised for publication, while works began on a similar draft standard concerning wall tiling, and works intensified on ceramic tiling. Design qualification and technical control during execution
With the publication of Part 3 "Design planning and planning and execution of design controls in a building project" the review of the standards in the UNI 10722 series on the qualification and control of construction designs for new buildings was completed. In order to fill the gap in the standards framework in which UNI 10722 and UNI 10721 operate concerning the criteria for appointing and developing technical control services, the Construction Committee agreed on the need to establish a special working group for technical controls during execution, that is the control during construction of the conformity of works with the design plans. Gas and heating systems
Works continued on the review of UNI 5364 "Hot water heating systems - Rules for the presentation of offers and testing" to extend its application to all tests to check conformity with current regulations and UNI 10389 "Heat generators - Measuring of fuel yield in situ". The review of the latter aims to divide the standard into two parts, and the main modifications will concern the inclusion of an example of "test report", as an appendix for information purposes, the inclusion of a procedure for measuring fuel yield of condensation-operating equipment in situ, as well as the clearer distinction between the procedures which have to be adopted by those working under appointment by the site management to oversee the running and maintenance of the system or equipment and those which must be adopted by those working on behalf of a control body.
After a long and in-depth review project managed by the CIG, at the end of the year a new edition of UNI 7129 was published, the base standard for domestic gas systems, which considers all the technological innovations and envisages new installation solutions.
For the first time, the new edition of the standard is divided into four parts, each dedicated to a specific macro-subject. Energy efficiency in buildings
At CEN level, works were completed on the preparation of standards included in Mandate M/343 to support Directive 2002/91/EC. Almost all the standards have been adopted nationally and, for some, translation into Italian has been arranged. The projects included in the Mandate are in many cases general framework standards which often require the development of national annexes as well as different calculation methods to verify the requirements, with different levels of precision. The possibility to use this set of standards is therefore conditioned by the actions of NSBs to make them applicable and suitable to replace the current reference standard framework.
To this end, the CTI has drawn up a national technical specification, divided into several parts, which allows the unequivocal definition of the method for calculating energy performance in buildings: UNI/TS 11300. The first two parts (concerning the determination of thermal energy needs of a building, primary energy and yield for summer and winter conditioning) have already been published, while the other two (concerning summer conditioning and the use of renewable energy and other generation methods) are near completion. The UNI/TS 11300 was expressly mentioned in Italian legislative decree 115/2008 which implements Directive 2006/32/EC concerning the efficiency of the final uses of energy, and it is also foreseen that this document be adopted by the Ministry of Economic Development in the national guidelines for energy certification, as a reference method for the certification of new buildings. Industrial shelving
It is worth mentioning, at the end of the year, the publication of three European standards developed by CEN/TC 344, the secretariat of which is managed by Italy, concerning the industrial shelving sector. These are EN 15620 "Static steel storage systems - Pallet-holder shelving - Tolerances, deformation and spaces", EN 15629 "Static steel storage systems - Specifications for warehousing equipment" and, finally, EN 15635 "Static steel storage systems - Use and maintenance of warehousing equipment". A fourth, which covers the principles of structural design, will be completed in early 2009. This is an important result for the sector, which has invested greatly in this activity and worked right from the outset in a supranational context, in order to allow the reference standards to reflect and best interpret the fundamental concept of product "standardisation", which lies at the heart of the very idea of standardisation. Quality management systems and customer satisfaction
At the end of November 2008 a new edition of UNI EN ISO 9001 was published both in Italian and english language just a few days after the issue of the standard internationally. This is the most common standard used by all organisations applying a quality management system and all those that choose to certify their compliance with the standard, of which there are around 120,000 in Italy alone. In this phase of standard review, the requirements of the quality management system were deliberately not modified in their substance, but rather many clarifications were made on the text through the introduction of new notes or the modified wording of some parts. Work also aimed at greater compatibility with ISO 14001. The final result is the new edition of UNI EN ISO 9001 which will certainly bring improvements to company management systems and offer greater benefits.
On the issue of customer satisfaction, the ISO 10000 package (application guides to quality systems) was completed with the publication of UNI ISO 10001 on codes of conduct and UNI ISO 10003 on dispute solving, which accompany the existing UNI ISO 10002 concerning claims handling. Quality in tourism, finance and other services
The "Tourism" commission is increasingly active thanks to the participation of many public bodies (in particular the Regions), as well as of private bodies (many trade associations) in the increasing international activity (ISO/TC 228), focussing in particular in the spa industry, protected areas and tourist information services.
Furthermore, during the year a European standard (UNI EN 15565) was published on vocational training and the qualification of tourist guides. In the finance industry, UNI ISO 22222 was published on personal financial, economic and assets planning, through the establishment of a new working group dealing with the issue through guidelines, technical reports and assessment indicators. The issue has aroused great interest among operators who, for the first time, are coming into contact with the world of technical standardisation.
A mixed working group was also established from the "Services" and "Quality management and support techniques" commissions on project management, aiming to assure the Italian participation in the ISO/PC 236 committee. Within a similar mixed group including both commissions, the national technical specification UNI/TS 11312 was published on mystery audit activities, the first standard ever published on this method, widely used in the trade, tourism and catering sectors.
The results of the UNI activities on management consulting, which is still proceeding nationally, were taken to CEN level, where a new technical committee was established with Italian secretariat, PC 381, which held its first meeting in September and which aims to complete the inquiry project within one year.
The European project on contact centres, prepared by the CEN BT TF 182 task force, which was chaired by Italy, has completed the European public inquiry phase with number prEN 15838 and is planned for publication in 2009. Corporate responsibility, equal opportunities, work-related stress
The most important news in this field was the establishment of the new technical commission on “Corporate social responsibility”, born as an evolution of the previous working group with the same name, which was also appointed to follow the issue of equal opportunities.
Meanwhile, right at the end of the year the ISO corporate responsibility working group completed the preparation of the first consolidated draft (ISO/CD) of the future ISO 26000 on the principles and guidelines for corporate responsibility, thanks also to the contribution of an Italian delegation composed of representatives of the various stakeholders. Within the “General principles” working group of the “Ergonomics” technical commission, a small group of experts was established to draw up a UNI technical report (an information document) which provides indications on the assessment of psycho-social risk factors and work-related stress. The field of application of this document concerns the Italian working environments and their need to understand the influence of psycho-social factors on the quality of work and working life to respect, on one hand, good practices which are based on corporate social responsibility and to fulfil, on the other hand, all legal requirements concerning the assessment of work-related stress. Societal security
The new technical commission "Societal and citizen security" was officially established through the involvement of the main stakeholders coming mainly from the previous strategic group, which had already prepared a special business plan to guarantee the active participation of Italian delegations in the ISO/TC 223 "Societal security", CEN/PC 379 "Supply chain security" and CEN/TC 391 "Societal and citizen security". Environment
As part of the Kyoto protocol under which the family of ISO standards concerning greenhouse gas emission measuring and validation instruments falls (adopted in Italy as UNI ISO 14064 and UNI ISO 14065) a national document has been added to support the application of international standards in our country: The UNI/TR 11286 technical report "Greenhouse gas - Analysis of the possible uses in Italy of standards UNI ISO 14064 and UNI ISO 14065 in the field of greenhouse gas emissions, with particular reference to the provisions of Directive 2003/87/EC".
Concerning environmental management systems, work has begun on the preparation of a technical report entitled "Indications concerning the application of UNI EN ISO 14001 in Italy, formulated based on the criticalities emerged and practical experience" from the will of the UNI and SINCERT management to review the SINCERT technical documents and more specifically, SINCERT RT09. Nuclear
Finally, it should be noted that during the year standardisation activities in the field of nuclear systems and relative components were re-launched, on instruction of the Ministry of Economic Development and through the involvement of the main stakeholders in the UNI "Nuclear energy" commission. Cinematographic archives
In 2008 new interest was aroused Europe-wide concerning the archives of cinematographic works, through the CEN/TC 372 committee interfaced in UNI by a new working group of the "Documentation, automatic and multimedia information" commission. A first draft standard was completed - prEN 15744 "Film identification - Minimum set of metadata for cinematographic works" - and is foreseen for publication in the first half of 2009. Pressure equipment
Standardisation activities on pressure equipment are showing no signs of slowdown. Having actively participated in the preparation of more than 950 European standards, the national technical bodies have focussed their attention on the problems relative to the running of the equipment. Remembering that UNI was appointed by the then Ministry of Production Activities to draw up technical specifications in conformity with the instructions of article 3 of DM 329/2004, the coordination of these works was appointed to the CTI, which is developing an extensive work programme concentrating on issues for which there are legislative deadlines: the project on the assessment of the state of preservation and efficiency of piping has been submitted for UNI public inquiry and will be published in early 2009 as UNI TS 11325-1. The project on the surveillance of steam generators and that on pressurised creep components were, on the other hand, submitted to an extensive internal CTI inquiry, to permit all sector operators to assess their contents and provide useful comments on their applicability.
In synergy with the above-mentioned activities, it is worth noting the development of a test method drawn up by the "Non destructive tests" commission for guided radiation and two draft standards on the method of metallographic replication: the first will be published as UNI TS 11317 in early 2009 and the others will be submitted for public inquiry at the beginning of the year. Machines
The machines sector is going through an intense period of preparation for the move to the “new” Machinery Directive (2006/42/EC), which comes into force on 29th December 2009. Over the years, the European technical committees have focussed their attention on the modification of the more than 750 existing standards to bring them into line with the requirements of the new directive: in most cases the choice was made to develop updates, the contents of which were integrated into the standard texts prior to publication, while in a few cases the choice was made to prepare a new edition of the standards. In 2008, more than 250 European standards were published by the CEN and adopted by UNI to support the Directive 2006/42/EC: among these, it is important to mention UNI EN ISO 13849-1 on the general principles for the design of parts of control systems linked to safety, UNI EN ISO 13849-2 on the validation of parts of systems linked to safety, UNI EN ISO 13850 on emergency stops, UNI EN ISO 13857 on safety distances for upper and lower limbs. These standards, and all the others that support the directive, will go with the existing ones to support Directive 98/37/EC, to definitively replace them from 29th December 2009 onwards. Acoustics and vibrations
In 2008 the "Acoustics" and "Vibrations" commissions merged to create a single "Acoustics and vibrations" (which previously existed until 1985) in an operation that has created a union truly on equal footing. One event which promoted the merger was also the publication of the white paper on the protection of health and safety, Italian Legislative Decree 81/2008, because it has placed increased attention on the issue of determining levels of personal exposure to physical agents (noise and vibrations) in the workplace. In doing so, it has allowed representatives of businesses and the public administration and research to contribute actively and organically to both issues. The vibrations activity is covered by a specific sub-commission, with the possibility to create specific groups.
After a long and complex procedure, 2008 saw the publication of the new version of UNI 9432 "Acoustics - Determination of the level of personal exposure to noise in the workplace" which contributes to the application of Italian law 81/2008. The new standard responds to the requirements of the decree concerning sampling, assessing uncertainty and assessing the effectiveness of PPDs. Compared to the previous edition, the new issues concern instruments, measuring methods, exposure to noise by acoustically uniform groups, reduction assured by ear protectors, uncertainty.
The new UNI 9432 leads the way for the development of three other standards, respectively to determine the level of personal exposure to vibrations in the workplace, for call centre workers and the technical/organisational measures which can be adopted by companies to reduce exposure to noise risk. Protection of underground structures
The "Protection of metallic materials against corrosion" commission was particularly active concerning the requirement set by the Electricity and Gas Authority, to assure the cathodic protection of gas distribution networks.
The external cathodic protection of well covering columns (with the translation of UNI EN 15112 on the methods used to assess the risk of external corrosion of well covering columns, as well as the methods and cathodic protection devices to be used to prevent corrosion) and porcelain enamels (UNI 11258 on test methods to assess the rheological features of porcelain enamel suspended sediment for wet applications) added to the above mentioned activity. Lifts
The "Lift systems, elevators, moving staircases and similar equipment" commission published several new standards and reviews of previous ones, in fields of great interest: the updating of two parts of UNI EN 81 "Safety rules for the construction and installation of passenger and goods lifts" concerning electrical and hydraulic lifts considers the evolution of the intelligent building management methods and introduces provisions for lifts with no machine rooms.
Also worthy of mention is the technical specification UNI CEN/TS 81-82, which provides rules for the improvement of accessibility for persons, including the disabled.
Of particular importance was the conclusion of the works to approve the national appendix of UNI EN 81-80, concerning the identification of risk situations and any provisions to be taken on existing lifts at the time of adoption of directive 95/16/CE and - finally - the publication of UNI EN 115-1, which provides the safety rules for the construction of newly installed moving staircases and moving pavements. Ships and marine technology
For the first time, in October the plenary meeting of ISO/TC 8 "Ships and marine technology" and its sub-commissions was held in Italy. 50 experts took part from 14 countries from around the world, completing the works and achieving the set objectives. The meetings dealt with the issues of safety in maritime transport and correlated activities (ISO 28000 series), ship recycling (ISO 30000 series), armament systems for berthing and towing, intermodal port systems and mobile floating port platforms. As far as the SC 12 "Large yachts" is concerned, of which Italy holds the secretariat and the chairmanship, important projects are under development concerning components, glass panelling, access catwalks, painting, fire protection and marine engines. Among the following subjects to be handled by the ISO/TC 8 is the one regarding noise emitted in the marine environment and the one regarding recycling of yachts made in compound materials and fibreglass, of particular interest for Italy. Safety of vehicles for personal entertainment
Mini-motorbikes, quads and karts are all vehicles which attract users through their natural ability to offer strong emotions at the wheel. This does not however mean that the use of such vehicles is completely free of danger. Some serious accidents have led the European Commission to underline that minimotorbikes, and generally all other vehicles destined for personal off-road use, must comply with the "Machines" directive and therefore can be sold on the market only if equipped with CE markings, conformity declaration and technical leaflets: the EN standards being completed in the three CEN/TC 354 working groups will be useful for the manufacturers of these vehicles as, when complied with, they will lay the foundations for conformity with the essential requirements of Directive 2006/42/EC. Metalworks
The activity in this sector concentrated on the development of supranational standardisation concerning flexible metal piping, fittings, gussets and expansion joints, technical delivery conditions for steel pipes for pressure-related purposes and steel pipes and fittings.
In Europe, the restructuring of ECISS "European Committee for Iron and Steel Standardization" (which will be operative from mid-2009), the technical committees of which have been completely reviewed, was followed with particular interest. |
