ISO History (brief) and basic facts
You would never know how much
this affects your life
In the beginning….
• ISA-International Federation of the National
Standardizing Associations, established in New
York, 1926 and administered from Switzerland.
• UNSCC-United Nations Standards Coordinating
Committee, established 1944 and administered
from London.
• ISO-International Organization for
Standardization (from Greek word “isos” for
equal), formed October 14-26, 1946 in London by
joining ISA and UNSCC.
ISA did not fulfill early expectations
but…..
• ISA was primarily a “metric” organization for
continental Europe, although Britain joined in the
1930’s.
• The organizational structure of ISA served as a
template for ISO.
• Many (early) ISO statutes and procedures were
adopted from ISA.
• Most of the 67 Technical Committees (these are
the guys who really run the important things)
which ISO set up in 1947 were originally ISA
committees.
UNSCC
• The UNSCC was formed in 1944 by the U.S.,
Britain and Canada to bring the benefits of
standardization to the war effort and later
reconstruction.
• Continental countries joined as they were
liberated.
• UNSCC was administered out of the offices of the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in
London.
• IEC founded in 1908.
What is “Standardization” and what is
it for?
The first things to consider are things that are
important in the context of world trade.
• Measurement Systems: How are things
measured? For us it is primarily the Quality
Characteristic of interest.
• How are things transported? What is a
“container”?
• How do you standardize processes and
procedures? For us it is the QMS.
So at the time….
• ISA was “mothballed” in Geneva during the war
(at the time it was basically run by Mr. Huber-Ruf,
a Swiss engineer who ran it out of his house with
his family).
• UNSCC was active but “immature” in the sense
that there was not a mature administrative
structure in place.
• As the war ended, there was a need for
reconstruction and trade (“make trade not war”
$$$$$$).
The right time and place for….
• The Secretary of the IEC during the Second World War was
a British engineer, Charles Le Maistre.
• He was “…very much the gentleman. Very diplomatic. He
knew everybody.” ,etc.
• Yeah, ok, he got the job at UNSCC. He knew about the ISA
and asked them if they would like to join.
• So in October 1946, he “opportunistically” convened a
meeting of the UNSCC in Paris at the same time the ISA was
meeting there.
• They reconvened both organizational meetings in the same
location in Paris, dissolved the UNSCC as soon as ISO
became operational (the ISA decided they were no longer
functional as of 1942) and ISO was born.
Details, details…..
• They argued about a name (of course). But ISO was
chosen.
• ISO is short, catchy (at least as far as technical types are
concerned), Greek for “equal”, and they did want to
operate by some sort of consensus.
• Official languages: French and English were the
international languages of the time (BTW, Le Maistre
spoke both) so they were chosen. The Soviets also
wanted Russian and volunteered to do all of the
translating. The Soviets wanted “no distinction between
Russian, English and French” so this was conceded (as
long as nobody knew what this was supposed to mean).
Location, location, location….
• Paris, Montreal, Geneva and other cities were
proposed for the location of the headquarters.
• After a number of votes, Geneva was chosen
by a one vote majority.
• Geneva is still the central location and all
official documents are published in English
and French (as well as other languages
depending upon the document).