ISO:
Launching of The ISO Concept Database (ISO/CDB) will benefit standards users and developers:
ISO has just launched a new database that will make the benefits of using standards easier to achieve, provide users with new possibilities for achieving such benefits and cut the time necessary to develop and revise standards.
In recent years, many of the technical commitees that develop ISO standards have established databases to store and administer structured concept items from published standards or ones under development, such as:
■Terms and definitions
■Graphical symbols
■Codes (language, country, currency etc.)
■Units of measurement
■Product properties
■Data dictionaries.
However, until now, no platform was available to bring together in a single source the content from more than 18 000 ISO standards developed to provide benefits to users in business, government and society.
To tackle this challenge, the ISO Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, has developed a new application, the ISO Concept Database (ISO/CDB), which provides a harmonized platform for search, development and maintenance of concept content throughout the ISO standards portfolio
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1261&utm_source=ISO&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=News (Read Full Artical)
New edition of ISO 9004 maps out the path forward to "sustained success":
The just-published new edition of ISO 9004 provides organizations with a model for "sustained success" in today's complex, demanding, and ever-changing environment.
ISO 9004:2009, Managing for the sustained success of an organization – A quality management approach, is the third edition of the standard first published in 1987. It is intended to support the achievement of sustained success by any organization, regardless of size, type or activity, by a quality management approach.
Bob Alisic, leader of the task group responsible for the ISO 9004:2009 comments: "While the goal is initially to ensure the production of 'good' products and services, leading to the achievement of customer satisfaction, the longer-term purpose is to ensure the economic survival of the organization. The new edition gives guidance on how an organization should adopt a systematic approach to achieve this."
ISO 9004:2009 provides guidance for the continual improvement of an organization's overall performance, efficiency and effectiveness based on a process-based approach. It focuses on meeting the needs and expectations of customers and other relevant parties, over the long term, and in a balanced way.
Compared to ISO 9001:2008 which ensures quality management of products and services, while enhancing customer satisfaction, ISO 9004:2009 provides a broader perspective of quality management, particularly for performance improvement. It will prove useful to organizations whose top management wishes to move beyond ISO 9001, in pursuit of ongoing improvement, measured through the satisfaction of customers and other stakeholders.
ISO 9004:2009 allows organizations to enhance the quality of product and service delivery to their customers by promoting self-assessment as an important tool to enable organizations to:
■Benchmark their level of maturity, covering leadership, strategy, management system, resources and processes
■Identify their strengths and weaknesses
■Identify opportunities for either improvements or innovation, or both.
The self-assessment tool may become a key element during the strategic planning processes in any organization.
Jose Dominguez, a leader of the ISO 9001 task group comments: "The objectives of customer satisfaction and product quality are extended in ISO 9004:2009 to include the satisfaction of interested parties and the performance of the organization. The combination of ISO 9001 and ISO 9004 will allow you to get the most of your quality system.”
ISO 9004:2009 replaces ISO 9004:2000. It makes substantial changes to its structure and contents of the earlier edition based on eight years’ experience of implementing the standard worldwide and introduces changes intended to improve consistency with ISO 9001 and other management system standards. An example of an important (maybe the most important one) change in the structure of ISO 9004 is that the “body” of the standard starts with the chapter giving guidance on how to manage an organization aiming for sustained success and not how to build a quality management system.
Although ISO 9004:2009 complements ISO 9001:2008 (and vice versa), it can also be used independently. It is not intended for third-party certification, regulatory, or contractual use, nor as a guide to the implementation of ISO 9001:2008. To help users get the best out of the standard, an annex gives a clause-by-clause correspondence between ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 9004:2009.
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1263&utm_source=ISO&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=News
NEW SCIENTIST:
Paradox lost: molecular collisions kept early Earth warm:
Some 2.5 billion years ago, the sun was so faint, the oceans should have been ice. They weren't, and this "faint young sun paradox" has puzzled scientists for decades. Now a modelling study suggests the answer lies with the greenhouse effect, and an extra helping of nitrogen.
Previous modelling efforts to resolve the paradox by loading the early atmosphere with greenhouse gases assumed that it has always had the same concentration of nitrogen. Instead, Colin Goldblatt of NASA Ames Research Center in California ran a model in which the pressure of nitrogen was twice what it is today.
Nitrogen is not a greenhouse gas, but the pressure rise would have led to more collisions between these molecules and greenhouse gases, causing them to absorb more infrared wavelengths.
Goldblatt found that this would have raised global temperatures by 4.4 degrees C (Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo692). He admits that this doesn't close the temperature gap entirely, but it could be part of the answer.
Goldblatt says he has evidence that the crust and mantle have since absorbed the extra nitrogen
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18153-paradox-lost-molecular-collisions-kept-early-earth-warm.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=environment
Climate change gives ancient trees growth spurt:
Rising temperatures are causing some of the oldest trees on Earth to grow faster, new research suggests. But the change might not benefit the climate – it may simply cause the trees to die more quickly.
Previous research (pdf) suggested that Great Basin bristlecone pines located in the mountains of western US are growing more rapidly. But the reason for the growth spurt – and whether or not it is unusual – was unclear.
A new analysis of tree rings suggests that the growth spurt is indeed unprecedented: bristlecone pines have grown faster in the past 50 years than they have in 3.7 millennia.
"This well-designed study suggests that climate change is the factor causing the growth spurt," says Greg Wiles, who reconstructs past climates using tree rings at Wooster College in Ohio
Read More http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18161-climate-change-gives-ancient-trees-growth-spurt.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=environment
ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERT
Nuno DaSilva, Managing Director of PE Americas, reveals the best methodologies for measuring an organization’s environmental impact.
Frequently I get asked for guidance on the best methods for measuring an organization`s environmental footprint. Questions tend to be about `should measurement be based strictly on collecting emissions and energy use data from operational and facility sites?` How best to determine green house gases (GHG) emits and is tracking other environmental outputs ...
http://www.environmental-expert.com/resultEachArticle.aspx?codi=75043&lr=1
ALSO Dont forget to check out some of the cool news things on this site:
http://environmentgreenonline.info/
Have a green happy day!
NICOLA!
No comments:
Post a Comment