Technical Barriers to Trade service – website and email alerts

In June, a new section of the Standards New Zealand website was launched to support our Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) services.

As a Party to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, New Zealand is required to operate a national enquiry point to respond to TBT queries. Standards New Zealand operates the enquiry point on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

New Standard published for managing disruption-related risk

All organisations must deal with change in the environments in which they operate. These changes can include changing stakeholder expectations, new strategies by competitors, emerging technologies, changes in staff, availability of finance, and the requirements of new legislation. To maintain business continuity – which is a core obligation of good governance – organisations need to anticipate and adapt to such changes so as to avoid either abrupt or progressive failure.

Change is therefore best dealt with proactively rather than reactively.

New edition of 'ISO 9001 for Small Businesses' handbook

A new edition of the successful ISO 9001 for Small Businesses handbook has just been jointly published by ISO and the International Trade Centre (ITC). The handbook has been updated to take account of the latest edition of ISO 9001 published in 2008. In plain language and through numerous examples from a wide range of sectors, the ISO 9001 for Small Businesses handbook aims to help small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to understand and implement ISO 9001, the Standard for Quality management systems – Requirements.

Measuring customer satisfaction – new ISO technical specification

ISO has developed a new technical specification Quality management – Customer satisfaction – Guidelines for monitoring and measuring ISO/TS 10004:2010. ISO/TS 10004 provides guidance to organisations to establish effective processes to monitor and measure customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is one of the key elements for the success of an organisation, whether in public or private sector.

'All organisations – private companies and public sector agencies – have customers, and their satisfaction or dissatisfaction can have far-reaching consequences for the organisation,' says Mr. Lally Marwah, convener of the project. 'The information gained from monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction as outlined in ISO/TS 10004 is vital to quality management. It can guide the organisation in taking actions to sustain or enhance customer satisfaction, and help in achieving the larger goals of the organisation.'

Design and innovation awards – intensive care bed and world-first safety injector

Australian International Design Award goes to New Zealand bed manufacturer

New Plymouth-based medical bed manufacturer Howard Wright has won the 2010 'Australian International Design Award of the Year' for its M8 Intensive Care bed.

The Australian International Design Awards is a division of Standards Australia and one of the world's most renowned design assessment programmes, recognising product design and innovation excellence. Winners were announced in Sydney on 4 June 2010.

NEW PUBLICATION

AS/NZS 5050:2010 Business Continuity – Managing disruption-related risk

Describes the application of the principles, framework and process for risk management, as set out in AS/NZS ISO 31000:2009, to disruption-related risk. Managing such risk effectively will help maintain continuity of an organization’s business.

→ Buy AS/NZS 5050:2010

DRAFT STANDARDS FOR COMMENT

Free to download from our website: www.standards.co.nz

DR 1015 Records management – Physical storage

Establishes voluntary guidelines for the storage of non-current physical records
Public comment on this draft closes on 28 July 2010

→ View or download this draft Standard for comment

STANDARD IN DEVELOPMENT

Dairy herd testing revision

Committee: P8100 Revision
Manager: Hagen Kerr
Estimated publication date: May 2011
Comments: The committee has been formed and the first meeting was held in May. Working group meetings are underway and the committee meets again on 19 July.