ISO - What is it?

ISO System

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developerand publisher of International Standards.

ISO is a network of the national standards institutes of 163 countries, one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, that coordinates the system.

ISO is a non-governmental organization that forms a bridge between the public and private sectors. On the one hand, many of its member institutes are part of the governmental structure of their countries, or are mandated by their government. On the other hand, other members have their roots uniquely in the private sector, having been set up by national partnerships of industry associations.

Therefore, ISO enables a consensus to be reached on solutions that meet both the requirements of business and the broader needs of society.

Why do Standards Matter?

Standards make an enormous and positive contribution to most aspects of our lives.

Standards ensure desirable characteristics of products and services such as quality, environmental friendliness, safety, reliability, efficiency and interchangeability - and at an economical cost.

When products and services meet our expectations, we tend to take this for granted and be unaware of the role of standards. However, when standards are absent, we soon notice. We soon care when products turn out to be of poor quality, do not fit, are incompatible with equipment that we already have, are unreliable or dangerous.

When products, systems, machinery and devices work well and safely, it is often because they meet standards. And the organization responsible for many thousands of the standards which benefit the world is ISO.

When standards are absent, we soon notice.

What Standards do

ISO standards:

• make the development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient, safer and cleaner
• facilitate trade between countries and make it fairer
• provide governments with a technical base for health, safety and environmental legislation, and conformity assessment
• share technological advances and good management practice
• disseminate innovation
• safeguard consumers, and users in general, of products and services
• make life simpler by providing solutions to common problems

Since you are reading this post, its more than likely that the only ISO standards that will affect you are ISO 4405, 4406 and 4407.

ISO 4405 (Gravimetric Measurement) - Gravimetric measurement is a reporting method that references the total mass of contaminant found in a hydraulic component. This total mass measurement is then normalized by the total internal component surface area of a hydraulic component. You need to flush the hose assembly, pour out the fluid, catch the contaminants and weigh them. The total mass of contaminant that has been flushed out of the component is then referenced to the surface area or volume of the assembly/component.

ISO 4406 (Method for Coding the Level of Contamination by Solid Particles - In ISO 4406, particle counts are determined cumulatively i.e. > 4 micron, > 6 micron and > 14 micron (manually by filtering the fluid through an analysis membrane or automatically using a particle counter) and allocated to measurement references.

ISO 4407 (Determination of particulate contamination by the sizing method using a microscope) - ISO 4407 is the analysis on the maximum particle size that is found in the sample fluid which is conducted with a microscope which is used  to size individual pieces of contaminant. A customer may specify the cleanliness level have a maximum particle size, for example 500 microns. Particle size is important in referance to maximum clearance of hydraulic components.