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SETTING THE STANDARD
had revised existing procedures and had drafted a flow chart on how a draft international
standard (DIS) should be processed in IIW, ISO and CEN.
36
This was subsequently agreed
at a ISO/TC 44 plenary meeting and also at the first Coordination Committee meeting,
both of which were held in June 1996. Hicks was an engineer by profession and had been
a British delegate and Vice-Chair on Commission XV
Design, Analysis and Fabrication
of Welded Structures
(C-XV) prior to becoming Secretary General. His prompt action on
producing these documents and engaging quickly with ISO were typical of his temperament
and character.
Hicks, Evrard and Bramat attended a meeting with ISO in Geneva on
5 June 1997. It was agreed by ISO that IIW had complied with every intent
of the original ISO Resolution 19/1984, but did not exactly correspond to
current ISO procedures. Consequently, some of IIW’s procedures needed to
be further modified. Hicks’ forthright manner and the continuing frustrations
in dealing with what appeared to be, at times, a rather intransigent approach
by ISO on the interpretation of Resolution 19/1984 and other policy issues,
in the end was to lead to Ziegenfuss taking on the role as IIW Standards
Officer, a position he assumed at the end of John Hicks’ contract.
The meeting of the Board of Directors at the San FranciscoAnnual Assembly in 1997
did have one bright note when it accepted the proposal of theAWS to sponsor
a new award, the Thomas Medal for services to standards and Evrard
became the first recipient of this award in 1998. The SC-STAND
also passed a resolution to request the ISO Central Secretariat to
review Resolution 19/1984, which was the source of much angst
within IIW, and the current Coordination Committee procedures.
Evrard was to retire as the Chair of the Select Committee when
his term of office expired at the Annual Assembly in Hamburg in
1998 and was succeeded by Shackleton from the beginning of
1999. It was a difficult time to undertake this role with
continuing concerns about delays by ISO in processing
IIW standards and corresponding disquiet being
directed at IIW by ISO/TC 44 regarding similar delays,
which resulted in a request by IIW for the ISO Council
to reconsider IIW’s status regarding standardisation.
There was immediate improvement in relations with ISO on the appointment of
Shackleton as Chair and he was to announce that Ziegenfuss had been appointed jointly
as IIW’s Standards Officer and Secretary of SC-STAND. The relationship with ISO
had reached its lowest ebb at the beginning of 1999 when Ziegenfuss was immediately
confronted with serious standards processing problems that threatened the future of IIW’s
David Shackleton