Fruitful meeting of the International Harmonisation Council
The International Harmonisation Council (IHC) was formed to support the development of international standards for industrial and medical gases. Today, the IHC has the leadership role for harmonising safety practices and reducing the variability in safety standards and operating practices on a global basis.
The IHC develops international harmonised publications through four regional Associations, which are:
- Asia Industrial Gases Association (AIGA);
- Compressed Gas Association (CGA);
- European Industrial Gases Association (EIGA); and
- Japan Industrial and Medical Gases Association (JIMGA).
These Associations manage the creation and revision of harmonised publications through working groups populated by industry experts from their member companies.
The intent of the harmonisation process is to produce publications that are identical in purpose and scope and have no conflicting operational practices. Projects proposed for harmonisation are assessed, approved, and prioritised by the IHC. These projects result in publications that shall be adopted for use by all participating IHC Association unless it can be shown that a publication is not appropriate in a specific region.
This month, the 54th meeting of the IHC happened with representatives of EIGA, CGA, AIGA and JIMGA, plus an Observer from nearly each member company.
The meeting continued working on their IHC Hydrogen Strategy: to develop of plan on common hydrogen activities, prioritise and fast track those deliverables which are identified as ‘missing but needed’ in order to support the development of the hydrogen sector, and communicate aligned positions on a global level to assure that the industry’s interests in hydrogen are correctly presented and defended.
Several standards are being finalised and we embark on a new approach to follow up closer the activities of the ISO TC 197 Hydrogen Technologies Committee. We will do so, by selecting those standards under development of interest to our industry and by creating a Joint Working Group as mirror to each of these draft standards.
