Don`t just sit there — participate!
George D. Miller
Editorial Director
One of the major messages coming out of the recently concluded IEST/ICCCS meeting (see story, page 1) is that global standardization is happening now in the contamination control field, as well as many others. The reason is so that all industry players — manufacturers and service providers, technology implementors and users, inspectors and others — in all parts of the world are playing by the same rules.
But in your capacity as manufacturer or service provider, technology implementor or user, inspector or other, are you subject to the rules or do you make them?
Even at its best, a gathering such as the IEST/ICCCS`s can convene only a fraction of the broader contamination control markets that now exist or are coming into being. So many of the “comers” — those in industries and regions of the world where contamination control is just becoming an issue — would not have taken the time or paid the money to join either the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology or the International Confederation of Contamination Control Societies. As a result, they would not have signed up for committees and volunteered their participation in standards activities.
The problem is that this is all spare-time work. And nobody has spare time.
Richard Matthews is chairman of the ISO/TC209 technical committee on cleanrooms and associated controlled environments. He is an active, long-time member of both the IEST and ICCCS. He sees it this way: “Management needs to encourage employees to join and participate,” in part because IEST is a professional society and not a trade association.
Greater participation benefits the individual, his or her company and the profession. According to John Goodman, IEST president, there`s a lot of value in participating in working groups: you get to network with the people who are driving the practice; it lets you know what`s new, and it lets you contribute to and drive the recommended practices and standards that you have to live by.
Choose to be a maker of the rules. Participate!