SMB/5522/R: Based On: SMB/5219/SBP Strategic Business Plan (SBP)
SMB/5522/R: Based On: SMB/5219/SBP Strategic Business Plan (SBP)
SMB/5522/R: Based On: SMB/5219/SBP Strategic Business Plan (SBP)
Secretariat
Date
3, SC3C, SC3D
Sweden
2014-11-20
Please ensure this form is annexed to the Report to the Standardization Management Board if it has been prepared during a meeting, or sent to the
Central Office promptly after its contents have been agreed by the committee.
Title of TC
Information structures and elements, identification and marking principles, documentation and graphical
symbols
A Background
TC 3 is one of the first Technical Committees created by IEC. In the field of installations, systems and
product engineering TC 3 deals with information structures, documentation and document content
including graphical symbols as well as graphical symbols for use on equipment.
The term "information structures" is used to convey the message that the management of information
generally is today a dominating aspect of the work compared to earlier focus on manually prepared
documents.
After a decision by SMB in 2012 TC 3 has taken over the tasks from the committee TC 16, which was
closed after its final plenary meeting at Oslo 2012-10-01. The areas of work taken over from the former
TC 16 are included in the list below. As TC 16 was a technical committee with a horizontal safety
function within IEC, this classification has now been assigned to TC 3.
The following areas are being dealt with:
Rules for structuring (of objects, documents and documentation) and rules for identification systems
Formal (computer interpretable) classification and identification of properties (data element types) of
objects and their environment
Formal definition of concepts associated with objects within their life cycle
Rules for the preparation and presentation of the information content of documents
The work is allocated to the Technical Committee and its two Sub-Committees SC 3C and SC 3D.
B Business Environment
B.1 General
With regard to the external business environment, the work is greatly influenced by the following
factors:
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The growth in usage of e-commerce with the development of new data dictionaries and increasing
requirements for interoperability.
The requirements on globally valid safety rules related to man-machine interfaces
B.2 Market demand
The traditional documentation and symbols standards (e.g. IEC 60617, IEC 60417 and IEC 61082) are
widely used.
The customers include, but are not limited to; consumers, engineering companies, manufacturers,
software developing companies (CAx, document management, product data management, product lifecycle management, etc.), consultants, academia, and other Technical Committees (TCs and SCs) in
IEC.
As an example of the latter, known users of IEC 60417 DB (graphical symbols for use on equipment)
are at least: SMB, TC 2, TC 3, SC 3C, TC 9, TC 13, TC 18, TC 21, SC 21A, SC 22E, TC 23, SC 23A,
SC 23B, SC 23C, SC 23E, SC 23G, SC 23H, SC 23J, TC 26, TC 27, TC 29, SC 32B, TC 33, SC 34C,
SC 34D, TC 35, SC 37B, TC 38, TC 40, TC 44, TC 47, SC 47E, SC 48B, TC 57, TC 61, SC 61B, SC
61E, SC 61H, SC 61J, TC 62, SC 62A, SC 62D, TC 64, TC 69, TC 72, TC 74, TC 76, SC 77A, TC 78,
TC 80, TC 82, TC 85, TC 91, TC 94, TC 95, TC 96, TC 97, TC 100, TC 101, TC 105, TC 108, TC 116,
SC121A, SC121B JTC 1, JTC 1/SC 31, JTC 1/SC 35, JTC 1/SC 37.
TC 3 found that other TCs required a guide on the best way to include the requirements of the
documentation standards into other standards. Such a guide is published as IEC/TS 62666. In addition
subcommittee 3C found that other TCs require guidance to follow the best way to include the graphical
symbols for use on equipment into other standards as described in IEC 62648.
Some standards of TC3 are classified as horizontal, which means that the standard is prepared for the
purpose of other TCs as well as for the industry outside of the TC/SC environment
An example: IEC 60417 DB and IEC 60617 DB are used as a reference in at least the following 23
member countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France,
Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom. The same is starting with IEC Component
Data Dictionary (IEC 61360 DB).
An example of use as support for regulations and legislation: Many of the standards produced by the
TC3 and its SCs have become European (EN) standards and are referenced from other EN standards
that are harmonized with European directives.
General rules for marking, identification and actuation principles related to products play an important
role, particularly in relation to the man-machine interface. Growing world-wide trade requires that the
safety rules for electrical equipment and components are compatible. Many parties involved in the
design and manufacturing of electrotechnical products require a consistent set of safety regulations and
standards. Users of electrotechnical products require that in addition to the safety aspect the ergonomic
aspects of the use of the product are to be considered too. This statement includes a high-level
requirement for the development of safety standards.
Information technology related standards (e.g. IEC 61360, IEC 81714, IEC 82045, ISO 10303-210, 212) manifest themselves as functional standards, i.e. standards serving a utilitarian purpose such as
providing the possibility to communicate among CAD (Computer-Aided Design), CAE (Computer-Aided
Engineering), CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing), PDM (Product Data Management), EDM
(Electronic Document Management) and other related systems. They influence the daily work (of a
design engineer, etc) only indirectly. The end-user demand is for the functionality in their tools, not for
the standards. These standards establish a potential source for the development of highly efficient
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engineering tools and methods. Relatively few CAx suppliers may satisfy the specified functionality: the
standards themselves will therefore never be sold in any great number, but nevertheless be even more
important to the industry than the traditional ones. Furthermore, they cannot be properly produced
without the application know-how.
There is a demand for standards to be distributed electronically, to an increasing degree in networks.
The collection of item standards, for which databases have been set up, have met this demand
through subscription of web access by industrial users.
The present market conditions as stated above are quite different from what they were 30 years ago. In
the early 80s there was a demand for well specialised and sector narrow standards for which industry
readily provided experts in order to set up the necessary standard.
Today, on one hand, many of the necessary standards have been set up and need only maintenance: a
task, which is less rewarding than setting up and has an administrative-like appearance. On the other
hand, moving from the product-oriented to the system-oriented standardization approach (and the
influence from the use of IT) leads to combine together standards that were formerly separated and
possibly inconsistent. The required integration does not necessarily attract the participation of
companies' experts, who feel less concerned, but brings closer together administrative-like structures in
charge of the standards.
In the area of properties to characterize products IEC 61360 and its corresponding standard ISO 13584
(Industrial automation systems and integration Parts library (PLIB)) provide requirements for computer
sensible descriptions of product concepts and their properties i.e. Data Element Types (DETs). The
DETs are collected in reference dictionaries such as IEC 61360 DB, which is also known as IEC
Component Data Dictionary (IEC CDD). As a joint effort of IEC CO and IEC SC 3D an extended and
more powerful version of the IEC CDD was developed and released in 2012.
Increasingly, there are new business opportunities for the direct usage of standards as industrial
product catalogues that can be based on reference dictionaries and checked against standards. In
France a number of large companies led by the countrys automotive industry, are developing an
experimental standard with AFNOR, the ISO member for France. This standard makes use of the
standardized reference dictionaries where applicable and is compliant with PLIB.
In Germany, PLIB and IEC 61360 standards are extensively used by DIN, the ISO member for
Germany, and industrial consortia. ecl@ss is the most widely used dictionary in Europe for product
properties and classifications. It is supported by major European companies and covers many industrial
areas. The dictionary has become PLIB compliant and is planned to base their product property
specifications on international standard reference dictionaries such as IEC 61360 DB.
The PROLIST group works on process control and electrical equipment of process plants. PROLIST
relies on the standardized dictionary for transactional engineering processes, such as electronic
requests for quotes or electronic bids. Large plant owners and their suppliers have started to implement
the processes. Currently, IEC SC 65E prepares proposals to add content to the IEC 61360 dictionary
starting within the area of measuring instrumentation with intended extension for low voltage equipment
for e.g. motor drives.
In Japan, the ISO 13584 and IEC 61360 data models are widely referenced as the basis for eprocurement and e-engineering predominantly in the electric-electronic domain as well as electric
machinery and electric measurement domains. The dictionaries developed and maintained include: the
ECALS dictionary of JEITA, the JeMarche dictionary of the Japan Electrical Manufacturers Association
(JEMA) and ISO 13584-501: Reference dictionary for measuring instruments Registration procedure
of JEMIMA.
Are the publications used for IEC schemes?
Presently the standards are not explicitly used in IEC schemes, but the standard on Generic
Specification of Information on Products (GSIP) can become a supporting standard, as well as the
rigorously defined data element types in IEC 61360 DB. There is a demand from industry that other
product-TCs also identify DETs related to their field of activity. The awareness of this demand is,
however, far from being sufficient within the relevant TCs but projects together with e.g. IEC/TC 121
and IEC/TC 111 are going on to define DETs.
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To support this task, Technical Specification, IEC/TS 62768, was prepared as a guideline for product
committees to specify the source descriptions in their own standard with a minimum of additional
workload and also to specify the information to be submitted to SC3D for inclusion in the IEC CDD.
Competing standards
In the area of graphical symbols for diagrams: Old standards (National standards as well as other
practices not being formal standards) never really die since they are preserved in text books used at
schools and universities and thus promoted to the next generations. A similar preserving tendency is
apparent in CAD-systems delivered with symbol libraries of old origin: users of the systems apply them
instead of creating proper ones.
In the area of graphical symbols for use on equipment: Some IEC standards developed by product
committees independently of SC3C, which should be aligned with IEC 60417 DB taking into account IEC
80416-1. In the area of data element types: Specifications developed by RosettaNet and ECALS.
B.3 Trends in technology
Information technology has changed the way of working. The move to computer-based documentation
has practically been completed with respect to the production of the documents. Focus today is on a
fully electronic management and distribution and use of documentation, as well as the information
needed to generate the documentation automatically.
Computer networks are being used not only as a means for distribution of ready-made documents, but
also as a tool in the design process, among co-operating partners. This includes different suppliers as
well as the customer and other organisations and institutions that are involved in the engineering and
manufacturing of products. The application of information technology makes it possible to change the
working method from sequentially oriented to concurrently oriented. To reach this functionality, it is
essential that the information is not only computer processible (i.e. the data is in such a format that it
can be read and stored by a computer). The information also has to be computer interpretable (i.e. the
data has to be in such a format that a computer can take action based on the content). The trend today
to use, for example Content Management or product Lifecycle Management systems requires these
standards.
With regard to the internal work of the committee the use of regular IT-tools is fully implemented, and
the intent is to improve the working procedures further.
Many of the standards produced consist of principle or methodological parts and collections of items,
where this principles and methods have been applied. This is for example true for: graphical symbols for
diagrams, (IEC 60617 DB), graphical symbols for use on equipment (IEC 60417 DB), document kind
definitions (IEC 61355 DB), and data element types for electric components (IEC61360 DB).
The principal and methodological parts can easily be dealt with in accordance with the normal
standardization procedure and with long maintenance cycles. The collection of items, however, has
appeared to be desirable to manage in databases with web access. With an adapted procedure (work
flow) a database allows for standardization item by item, with the result that such items can be
standardized much quicker. Appropriate procedures were elaborated some years ago and have been
used for IEC 60617 DB as well as for IEC 60417 DB, IEC 61360 DB and IEC 61355 DB standards. The
practical use of these procedures has shown some deficiencies which are actually addressed by a
Taskforce set up by TC3.
The introduction of standards in database format has changed the view of what a standard may be. For
standards maintained in databases the content of such a database is the real standard and possible
regular publications, on paper or CD-ROM, are just printouts taken at a certain time.
Based on the availability of standards in database format, industry members are requesting data bases
allowing the presentation of the content in different languages. The Japanese variants of IEC 60617
since June 2012 and IEC 60417 since January 2013 have proven that it is manageable if the content is
being provided and maintained by the responsible National Committee. This allows new business
opportunities to National Committees concerning the publication of standards in database format as well
as for industry when downloading items in different languages. Japanese National Committee has
already implemented their national languages in the databases and other National Committees, e.g. the
Finnish are preparing translations for implementation of their national languages.
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intends to be used in any exchange of product data for undoubted understanding both by humans and
by computerized systems, receiving and acting on the information.
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The 82045 series of International Standards is developed jointly with ISO/TC 10. The first part IEC
82045-1 series was issued 2001. IEC 82045-1 and -2 were reconfirmed 2009.
An area of concern is the relation between document management for technical documentation and
records management dealt with by ISO TC 46/SC 11. There are a number of overlapping topics in
these areas, and efforts are being made in ISO TC 46/SC 11 to turn the standards for records
management into Management System Standard. The relations between the areas will therefore need
clarification and mutual acknowledgement.
IEC 62023 forms a bridge between document management and the structuring principles for products
and systems laid down in IEC 81346-1. The standard has been subject for a minor revision. Edition 2
was published in 2011with stability date 2019.
D.4 Graphical symbols for diagrams
The graphical symbols for diagrams are since 2001 maintained as a standard in database format: IEC
60617 DB. The continuous maintenance of this standard is the most important work in this area.
The availability of multi-lingual functionality is of high importance for users and for the National
Committees for this database. Japanese variant was realized in June 2012 and Finnish variant is under
development.
A project aiming at the formulation of more clear design rules for complex symbols is going on. The
team MT 60617 has been set up for this task.
The 81714 series of International Standards is developed in co-operation with ISO TC 10 regarding
basic design rules for symbols for use in technical documentation. No major revision work is foreseen.
In this area there are also technical reports issued: IEC/TR 61352 and IEC/TR 61734. No major revision
work is foreseen.
A project team with the task to prepare the standard IEC 62744 for presentation by graphical symbols of the
dynamic behaviour of objects was established in 2012. The standard is intended to be applicable both for the
graphical symbols for diagrams (IEC 60617 DB) and the graphical symbols for use on equipment (IEC 60417 DB).
The scope of the standard is described as Representation of states of objects by graphical symbols. IEC 62744
is designated horizontal standard. The work on the standard has been finalized and it will be published with the
stability date 2019.
D.5 Graphical symbols for use on equipment (SC3C)
The graphical symbols for use on equipment are since a number of years maintained as a standard in
database format: IEC 60417 DB. The continuous maintenance of this standard, having the status of a
Horizontal Standard is the most important work in this area.
Further to this the development of the database into a multilingual one is of high importance for users
and for the National Committees. The Japanese variant was released in January 2013.
Graphical symbols for use on equipment have many times emanated from product committees with
various ideas on the design and without knowledge of an overall graphical language. One work during
the actual period will be to seek coherency of graphical symbols for use on equipment among the IEC
deliverables in accordance with Guide 108. IEC 62648, Graphical symbols for use on equipment
Guidelines for the inclusion of graphical symbols in IEC publications was released in 2012 as horizontal
standard, on which Product Committees rely, and IEC/TR 62687, Graphical symbols for use on
equipment Terminology to speak common language among committees in the field of graphical
symbols.
IEC 60417 covering electrical and ISO 7000 covering non-electrical symbols for use on equipment have
been put together in one common database in order to provide one common entry for the market.
The 80416 series of International Standards is developed jointly between IEC SC 3C and ISO TC
145/SC 3. It deals with basic design rules for symbols for use on equipment (including conversion of
such symbols to icons). Part 1 of this series, having status of Horizontal Standard, has recently been
revised and no major revision is foreseen before 2017. Part 3 of this series has been published with
stability date 2017 as well.
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This project will provide generic rules for the preparation of well structured specification documents that
make use of the data element types defined in IEC 61360 DB. The structuring will make the documents
computer interpretable and also make it possible to follow the development of the specification over the
life time of the specified product or plant. This is considered as a project of high priority. It will include
several parts, of which the first ones will need to be completed during the coming 3 5 year period.
D.9 Multi-lingual functionality in the database standards
The provision of multi-lingual content (and also multi-lingual human interface) is an issue of high
importance for all the database standards (IEC 60417 DB, IEC 60617 DB, IEC 61355 DB and IEC 61360
DB).
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D.10 Basic and safety principles for man-machine interface, marking and identification
The application area taken over from former TC 16 is covered by six standards. For these standards no
major revisions are foreseen during the coming five years.
E Action plan
TC 3
1. Develop a series of standards for Generic Specification of Information on Products (GSIP)
in line with the project already started. Part 1 on principles and methods of this series is
approved as PAS, for Part 2 on the structure of the GSIP a PT has been set up. A
subsequent part is planned to contain a generic XML structure. Further it is proposed that
Interoperability between electromechanical and electrical applications in CAx-systems (see
IEC/PAS 62515) will be included in the series. This series should be possible to complete
within the 3 year time frame. We need to look into harmonization of DETs being
independently originated by different product committees such evolving in a variety of
different results for the same issue. This would be crucial for industry;
2. Further development of the 81346 series of standard, Structuring principles and reference
designations, in liaison with ISO/TC 10/SC 10. This includes coordination of the different
parts of the series. It is important that part and two will continue to be base for the series.
IEC 81346-2 is in preparation for a new edition in aim to better support even coming parts of
the series;
3. For the area of document management: to continue to clarify gaps and overlaps between
standards and other specifications provided by other actors and seek co-operation and
where possible and necessary: ISO TC 10 and ISO TC 46/SC 11 are seen as primary actors,
but there are others;
4. Continuous maintenance of IEC 60617 DB initiated by Change Requests in accordance with
Annex SL to IEC specific procedures, ISO/IEC Directives;
5. Enhancement and putting into production of the multilingual functionality in the database IEC
60617 DB in collaboration with respective National Committees;
6. Set up rules and guidelines for application of combined graphical symbols in IEC 60617DB
and make improvements of the search functionality in the data base;
7. Further development of the 82079 series of standard, Instruction for use, in a joint working
group together with ISO/TC 10/SC 1
8. Minor revisions of a number of standards;
9. Development of the overall description of the documentation system;
10. Full incorporation of the former TC 16 tasks including monitoring of ACOS activities and
provide input when required.
SC 3C
1. Continuous maintenance of IEC 60417 DB initiated by Change Requests in accordance with
Annex SL to IEC specific procedures, ISO/IEC Directives;
2. Co-ordination and collaboration with other committees which are developing graphical
symbols for use on equipment in their standards to avoid inconsistency among IEC
deliverables by following the horizontal standard IEC 62648;
3. Following IEC 60417-JP, enhancement and putting into production of a multilingual database
including IEC 60417-FI, IEC 60417-DE and other variants in collaboration with respective
National Committees;
4. Maintenance of the 80416 series of International Standards in collaboration with ISO TC
145/SC 3 via Joint WG 11;
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List of IEC Technical Committees and Subcommittees Select TC 3, SC 3C or SC 3D for IEC official TC/SC
Dashboard
TC 3 web site Historical documents, Standard in database form, Standing documents, etc
IEC Collaboration tool Select IEC TC 3 > TC/SC Meetings for meeting documents
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