The reconstitution of the ISO Committee on Reference Materials (ISO/REMCO) into a technical standards committee – processes and intended outcomes

The ISO Committee on Reference Materials (ISO/REMCO) has been actively developing guidance documents aimed at promoting harmonized approaches to producing and using reference materials (RMs) for chemical analysis since the 1970s. ISO/REMCO Guides have been used widely by producers and users of RMs to improve RM quality and to improve the quality of measurement results using RMs in calibration and quality control. Recently, the ISO Technical Management Board (TMB) changed the status of ISO/REMCO and its guidance documents to resolve a discrepancy that has existed between the ISO directives and the nature of ISO/REMCO Guides. The solution was to transform ISO/REMCO from and advisory committee to a technical committee (TC 334, Reference Materials) with the ability to convert ISO/REMCO Guides into other forms of ISO output such as international standards. These outputs encompass competence of RM producers, uses of RMs, terminology, RM documentation, quality control materials, and RM value assignment principles. The content of these documents is relevant to the production and use of Certified Reference Materials produced by the NBL Program Office as well to the general use of RMs throughout the nuclear measurement community. This presentation will describe the ISO reasoning and process behind this organizational change and provide details on each of the existing guides, their content, and TC 334’s plans for new standards.