ISA standards help automation professionals streamline processes and improve safety, cybersecurity, and efficiency in operations spanning multiple industry segments. Over 150 consensus standards and guidelines reflect the work and knowledge of more than 3,000 participating experts worldwide.
A standard sets forth requirements that a process, system, product, or material must satisfy if it is to be truthfully stated (or advertised) as meeting that standard.
ISA standards are not government regulations, but rather are voluntary documents that are sometimes referenced in regulations. In addition, contracts between private entities may include requirements to follow specific ISA standards.
Among their many benefits, standards help manufacturing and related organizations by harnessing years of experience and expert knowledge to :
ISA also develops two types of informative documents that support the understanding and use of ISA standards—but that do not carry the normative standing of an ISA standard:
ISA is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop industry standards following approved processes to ensure openness and balance—and to prevent dominance by specific interests, companies, or organizations.
ANSI is a nonprofit organization, not a government agency. ANSI accreditation does not prevent participation in ISA standards by those outside the U.S. In fact, individuals working on ISA standards committees are based in more than 40 countries. Membership in ISA is not a requirement.
The key elements of ISA’s standards development program are set forth in our ANSI-accredited procedures. Those procedures call for main (oversight) committees that develop standards strictly within their approved scope areas to ensure that different committees do not work on the same or overlapping topic areas. Main committees typically have working groups that work on specific documents or projects.
ISA main standards committees include :
Participation on ISA standards committees is open at no cost to automation professionals from any country who agree to abide by each of the following requirements :
ISA main committees include voting and nonvoting (also called information) members. The voting membership of main committees must be balanced across interest categories that include users, suppliers, integrators, consultants, government/regulators, and test/certification providers. This balance is intended to allow fair and open input from all categories without domination by any one category.
Voting members must meet active participation requirements (such as submitting content to documents) as defined by the main committees to qualify for and maintain their voting status. There may be no more than one voting member employed by the same company or organization.
New members to ISA standards committees typically join as information (nonvoting) members. Information members are observers who may submit review comments on documents and participate directly in committee work, including writing documents and leading working groups. They may apply for voting status if they can meet a committee-defined level of participation.
Working groups under a main committee may conduct informal votes on documents or other matters, but do not have official voting and nonvoting members.
For details on how standards (as well as RPs and TRs) are approved by committees, see our procedures. To summarize:
All committee members, voting and nonvoting, may submit review comments during a ballot. All comments must be responded to in writing (typically in a spreadsheet) for viewing by the entire committee. Responses are usually prepared by the working group that developed the document.
Voting members are given a chance to change their votes based on the responses and any resulting changes to the document.
The process of voting, response, and reconsideration can sometimes go through several cycles, but when finished the document is balloted to a governing body, the ISA Standards & Practices Board, for final approval. This latter ballot is strictly to approve that ISA’s procedures have been followed properly in the development of the document. It is not a ballot on the technical content, which is solely the responsibility of the respective standards committee, being made up of technical experts.
ISA standards may be obtained at the listing of all ISA standards.
For ISA members, a major benefit of membership is free viewing of ISA-copyrighted standards, RPs, and TRs.
Do you have a suggestion for a new standard, topic, or training that ISA should consider? Please send it to ISA Standards.
The International Society of Automation (ISA) is a nonprofit professional association founded in 1945 to create a better world through automation.
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