On 19 October 2018, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) will celebrate a century of service as the coordinating body for the US standards and conformity assessment system. As one of its five founding members, IEEE’s involvement with ANSI is not only historic, it has also been consistent and remains current, as ANSI continues its work to assure the safety and health of consumers and the protection of the environment.
“IEEE congratulates ANSI on its 100th year anniversary and its ongoing important role in the US standards development process,” said Don Wright, president of the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA), and a member of the IEEE Board of Directors. “Our ongoing collaborative efforts within ANSI and resulting standardization have brought vast improvements to industry, and IEEE is proud to have been one of the founding SDOs that created ANSI.”
Over 100 years ago, IEEE saw the need to provide means for broad stakeholder engagement, collaboration and input in the standardization process. What’s more, the five founding ANSI members recognized there was no uniformity in the rules for procedures between their different organizations and that, at the time, the system resulted in considerable duplication of work. Over the past 100 years, IEEE’s longstanding collaborative effort with ANSI on standards development continues to achieve marked improvements in manufacturing processes—helping to streamline productivity, improve interoperability, lower costs and more quickly respond to industry needs.
According to Mary Lynne Nielsen, program director, IEEE SA Global Operations and Outreach, “Standards come about when technologists recognize that there are gaps that need to be addressed. That same principle was employed in the creation of ANSI, where five founding organizations recognized an acceptable solution was required to fill a gap. It’s rewarding to look back over the past century in recognition of ANSI’s achievements as we congratulate them on 100 years of success.”