Standardisation activities to facilitate the commercialisation of the developed solutions in MADRAS

Standardisation is a consensus-based process leading to a voluntary agreement between experts. This process is developed in the framework of standardisation organisations, such as national standardisation bodies, CEN or ISO, whose work consists in managing and promoting the development of standards.

Standardisation is an activity that is more and more valued as part of research and innovation projects, since it is a useful tool to disseminate results to the industry, society and public administrations. It also enables interoperability and compatibility of innovative solutions with existing products, services or processes, and facilitates trade by reducing technical barriers.

Standards generate trust, since they ensure that a product, service or system complies with expectations and requirements of the market or public procurement.

Standard-related activities started from the beginning of the project, identifying existing related standards that have been used to develop MADRAS project. But time is now to go forward another step and leave some more footprints. The knowledge and good practices learnt during the project can be useful for other industrial and social players, even in different sectors.

And this is not the only reason to use it. ‘Standards build trust’ – This is a slogan from the European Standardisation Organizations, CEN and CENELEC, based on the fact that compliance with standards enhances confidence of users and customers, supports European policies and international trade, being fundamental in the development of Single Market.

UNE, the Spanish standardisation organisation, is leading the activities related to standards in MADRAS. UNE’s main objective is to increase the visibility and impact of the project, as well as to contribute to the acceptance and utilisation by the market of the developed solutions. It is also expected that the standardisation activities are the way to ensure the quality and to generate confidence among the future users of the MADRAS materials, processes and related plastics and electronics products.

The first standardisation activity already performed corresponds to a report analysing the current standardisation landscape. This has provided the consortium with a clear image of the existing standards and standardisation technical committees that have a relationship with the project, in order to identify applicable standards to the different partners’ tasks and possible standardisation stakeholders during the project. In this report they have been also identified those standards that are currently being used by the partners and some possible standardisation gaps.

Direct communication with relevant standardisation technical committees has also begun, with the objective of disseminating the project findings and results by using the standardisation system as a fast and focused dissemination tool to the market stakeholders. General information on the project has been already shared and information on the project results is periodically transmitted.

It is also expected to begin an interaction with some identified standardisation technical committees and to establish a bidirectional relationship, capturing their inputs for MADRAS and contributing from the project to ongoing or future standardisation works.

But, how to put this into practice? The standardisation system has many options which can accommodate different needs. In the framework of research and innovation projects, where emerging and innovative knowledge mixes with tight time constraints, one of the preferred options is the elaboration of fast-track and reduced consensus documents, such as the CEN-CENELEC Workshop Agreements (CWA).

A CWA is a kind of pre-standard, quickly developed in a group of volunteering interested parties. It is especially suitable for putting into the market this kind of emerging knowledge and checking its acceptance in practice, allowing in that case to get a first step towards a full European or International Standard. It has been used so far by a large number of European projects, increasingly becoming a usual tool.

Francisco Arribas, Programme Manager for fuels, machinery, entertainment and aeronautical sectors at the Standardisation Department of UNE since 2004.

• B.A. Industrial Mechanical Engineer with specialization in Mechanical Engineering and calculation by the University of Salamanca, Spain.
• Secretary of CEN/TC 334 and CEN TC 433 WG 4
• Responsible for the standardisation activities in the FP- projects “TIRAMISU” and “D-BOX” and H2020-project “BIONIC AIRCRAFT”.
• Participation in the RPAS Advisory Technical Commission of the Spanish Aviation Safety Agency (AESA)
• Experience in glass processing industry as production manager and technical project manager.

The Spanish Association for Standardisation, UNE, is legally designated as the National Standardisation Body of Spain. It is the national representative at the European (CEN and CENELEC), International (ISO and IEC) and Pan-American (COPANT) Standards Organizations, and member of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).