Progress update – develop of a new standard for swimming pools and associated equipment. Article by Alice C. Boyd.
Computer vision systems with automatic detection, are being put on the agenda and an international standardisation group – ISO/TCO83/ WG04. The main agenda of the group is to develop a more descriptive standard for these types of systems. In addition to ”Standard Norway” and Alice C. Boyd, several other international industry bodies are involved in this process.
– The last meeting was held in Loughborough, UK September 16th to 18th 2015. We have reached a consensus regarding an outline ready to proceed to the next stage, the ”committee draft stage”. As usual, there will be a two months’ deadline to make comments and suggest adjustments to the draft. So far we have succeeded in changing some definitions, but we will get together again to find out if there are other areas that need to be addressed, Boyd says. The next meeting will take place in Hong Kong at the beginning of April 2016.
This standard is important to Norway because there already exists a drowning alarm system, developed in Norway, that will be affected by the wording in the standard document. Davo, that develops, distributes and sells SwimEye, is represented in the committee and believe it is important to protect national interests and to make suppliers follow the same rules.
– For us it is essential to develop an ISO standard that will not – in any way – limit innovation and new technical solutions. In addition, we wish to influence the outcome in such a way that the customer, to a certain degree,
has the possibility of individual assessment, says Tor Petter Johansen, CEO of the Stavanger based company. He points out that the European market is better served with a standard that will help eliminate poor computer vision solutions and enhance competition.
”Standard Norway” is the national contact point of the standardization process directed by the standardizing organization ISO and the European standardizing organization CEN. European standards are determined as Norwegian Standards (NS-EN) according to international agreements. The ISO/TC standard is expected to be implemented in Europe and Norway over the next few years.
Alice C. Boyd, employed by ”BAD, PARK & IDRETT”, is the leader of the “Standard Norway” draft standard review group, which also is part of the international task force for the new ISO Standard.