Drews, Wolfgang

Dräger Safety, Lübeck, Germany

Two main streams of activity are being derived within ISO TC 94 “Personal Safety”, reflecting the area of breathing devices. These are Sub-Committees 14 and 15. The first is an international user group committee, SC 14, called “Firefighter’s Personal Protection Equipment”, for both professional and volunteer firefighter’s. The second is SC 15, called “Respiratory Protective Devices”, addressing all types of breathing devices in almost all applications. It was agreed during the consolidation meeting in spring this year that the most powerful approach for international acceptance will be the system approach, as is already established in Australia, North America and partially in Europe and Japan, where the component approach exists in parallel - not a conflict, but an area for discussion.

This paper gives a structural overview on the latest organisation and the upcoming work to be performed within the working groups, the differentiation between the two committees and the harmonisation with existing standards worldwide. It will give an answer to the widely discussed question: CEN or ISO led work items for breathing devices as the future work profile?