ABYC receives ANSI re-accreditation

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The American Boat & Yacht Council recently passed an audit by the American National Standards Institute and has been formally re-accredited as a Standards Development Organization, ABYC reported in a release yesterday.

The purpose of the audit was to determine whether ABYC was in compliance with the ANSI Essential Requirements for openness, balance, consensus and due process, and helps to ensure the integrity of the standards developers that use the ANSI process.

“ABYC’s re-accreditation affirms our organization’s commitment to a strong technical standards program, and enables ABYC to maintain its position as a developer of ANSI standards,” ABYC President Skip Burdon said. “ABYC is committed to ANSI’s vision of openness and due process for standards development, and we welcome all stakeholders in the marine industry to participate in shaping the technology standards that shape our industry.”

ABYC has over 400 volunteers that participate in the standards development process, and is always in need of more. There are 18 project technical committees dealing with 68 standards. There are four new standards under development at this time and 19 existing standards in the process of review. This year’s ABYC supplement (the publication of documents that have completed the review cycle) may contain over 13 documents.

“Even for a 50-plus-year-old standards writing organization, it has been a long road to re-accreditation that resulted in many changes to our procedures,” John Adey, ABYC technical director said. “However, the result is a quality standard of which we can all be proud, and a standard that can be used with confidence by the marine industry.”

Two ABYC standards have already been approved using the newly approved ANSI process (A-1 and A-26), and ABYC currently has three in review.

ANSI is a private non-profit organization that seeks to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and the American quality of life by promoting, facilitating, and safeguarding the integrity of the voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system, ABYC said.

Its membership is comprised of businesses, professional societies and trade associations, standards developers, government agencies, and consumer and labor organizations. The Institute represents the interests of more than 125,000 companies and organizations and 3.5 million professionals worldwide.

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