ISO ??

What exactly is ISO and what should we PDers know about it?

(besides the basic google definition)

For example, if I am designing a kitchen product, do I need to deal with ISO?

If your product falls into one of these categories, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to check it out and follow it. (i.e., thread count, film speeds/sizes, etc.) If you’re making a new knife and fork set, there probably isn’t an ISO standard.

If you have an electrical kitchen appliance however, there may be standards for electrical draw, cord length, but not too much that you should be concerned with. Engineering should rip that apart for you.

ISO (900x) is a manufacturing process documentation scheme. Basically if you’re a manufacturer you need to worry about ISO documentation standards. As a designer, understanding what is needed to maintain ISO from a process documentation is helpful if your client must maintain ISO for their business.

A client mentioned ISO22000 standards and is wondering if it’s necessary to deal with, the product is a basic household hand gadget (non electric).

Should I tell him its unnecessary to worry about?

Tell him that you would be happy to contact ISO and purchase the standard documentation (at a +15% mark-up) and charge him/her for the time to do the research into their product manufacturing standards.

ISO, ANSI and other popular standards are considered CGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Process.)

Many regulators (in my case the FDA CDRH for medical devices) want to see that you’re following CGMP. So if you’re not doing what these agencies recommend, the regulator will want to know why–and you’ll want a good answer! For instance, I regularly violate ISO symbol standards because I find a better way to communicate meaning with a symbol. Of course I use usability testing to prove this (naturally in compliance with ISO 13407 “Human Centered Design Processes for Interactive Systems”!)

The standard you mention (ISO22000) covers “food safety” so that sounds pretty important to either your customers, or potential regulators like the FDA. It looks like a Hazards Analysis process is involved in this process. The more educated you are about the standard the better chance you’ll have in designing an appropriate & acceptable product. Likewise you should be involved in the hazards analysis process–a task many designers unfortunately push off on to R&D or Quality.

I went to an event held by the BSI which was about creating a standard for sustainable product design. This might be something we have to work towards in the future.

It also made me aware of some of the standards currently out there…like did you know the BSI has a guide for managing innovation (BS7000-1:1999)?

This is an old thread but I thought I would bump it in order to ask a question about my own ISO issue at the moment.

I’m having a product, also a non-electric hand held object (kitchen tool) , CNC machined and the manufacturer has asked me for tolerances. Fairly naive, I suggested what I am familiar with, which is approximations of rapid prototyping resolutions i.e 0.02 to 0.05 mm. The manufacturer has come back and said this is not possible and instead suggest ISO2768.
http://mdmetric.com/tech/DINISO1302extract.htm
According to the specifications, this could mean a deviance in various dimensions of up to + or - 0.2mm, and this is at its ‘fine’ rating.

My concern is not for an ill-fit to an another component, rather that a fifth of a mil may affect the aesthetic appearance - it seems rough to me, especially in regards to radii (there is a blade edge). Or have I mis-interpreted something?

I should add that this product is a prototype for exhibition and I am my own client, so there is no external issues to consider.

ISO 2768, a sister of ANSI Y14.5, is a system of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing control for specifying, manufacturing and inspection of manufactured parts. It includes dimensional tolerance ranges for geometry type based on levels, i.e. medium, fine, etc. You need to review the applicable dimension range listed in the tables to determine if ±0.2mm is acceptable over your specific dimension, for smaller dimension range the deviance is less: the definition of “tolerance”.

If you are commissioning manufacturing of parts, other than various rapid prototyping processes, you should become familiar with this topic or involve someone that is, as you will face this question again. Unfortunately it is a large, difficult and rather dry topic. Even the future of “model based dimensioning” (no drawings) completely relies on either the ISO or ANSI standard.

If your CNC machined part(s) are visual only and have no assembly dependencies then you will be reasonably safe to inform the manufacturer of this and are willing to accept the part from the machine.

Pier thanks for your reply. It corresponds to what the manufacturer has briefly told me. And right there are no assembly dependencies at the moment so I think it will be fine. Well, I’ll know in a few weeks.