Keeping ANSI Standards Current

By Joe Lazzara, Scientific Technologies Inc.


With over 13,000 standards to manage on a wide variety of specifications, machinery and processes, have you ever wondered how ANSI is able to keep this diverse set of standards up to date?

An important requirement of the ANSI process is to have a periodic review and revision procedure designed to help ensure each standard evolves with the latest industry trends, user expectations and advances in technology. The review process requires that within five years of the initial publication date, a subcommittee must commence a review of the standard. The subcommittee essentially has three options: it may either choose to revise, reaffirm or withdraw the standard. In any case, the work must be completed within a specific time frame.

If a standard is reaffirmed it remains substantially unchanged, except for minor typographical corrections. The reaffirmation designation is the letter "R" with the year in parenthesis after the standard. For example, ANSI B11.19 was originally published in 1990 and reaffirmed in 1996, so the current designation is B11.19-1990 (R96).

The subcommittee can also decide a standard should be revised. This decision is made after the subcommittee members review the current environment for the standard and assess whether due to advancing technology, changing safety and health considerations or user expectations that a revision is appropriate.

A standard can also be withdrawn, if a subcommittee decides that it is no longer useful or the machine users are better served by another ANSI standard. Does this really happen? Sure. For example, it is planned to combine the B11.9 standard on Grinding Machines with the B7.1 standard on Abrasive Wheels.

ANSI also provides a reasonable timetable for the subcommittees to review the standard and decide its fate. Work on the standard assessment must commence within 5 years of the last activity date. If the subcommittee does not complete the work in this time frame, a series of two 2-year extensions are allowed, followed by a final 1-year extension. At this point, it is now ten years from the last standard date and if the subcommittee has not concluded its work, the standard is automatically withdrawn. The B11.16 standard on Metal Powder Compacting has met this fate. However, as with B11.16, a subcommittee can be reactivated and progress made on a new standard. Essentially, this process works like a built-in "sunset provision" to assure users that standards will not languish and are kept reasonably current.

This concludes the fourth in a series of articles on the ANSI standard development process, how ANSI is able to keep over 13,000 standards current, the relationship with OSHA and the further impact of these consensus standards on American industry. Next time, we will look at some of the newly proposed and, of course, controversial OSHA draft standards regarding environmental health which may have an expensive and far reaching impact on the machine tool and automation equipment users. In the meantime, be safe out there!

Lazzara on Automation Safeguarding is a monthly column written for Safetyonline.com and Plantautomation.com.

Joe Lazzara is president and CEO of Scientific Technologies Inc. (STI, Fremont, CA), the largest provider of automation safeguarding solutions in North America. Lazzara began his career with Hewlett Packard in 1973 where he had responsibility for safety and environmental issues for one of HP’s largest divisions. He joined STI in 1981 as vice president and became president in 1989 and CEO in 1993. Lazzara received a bachelor’s of environmental engineering degree from Purdue University and an MBA from Santa Clara University.