Counters added at the web pages for the committees
In order to get an impression on how many visitors the committee web pages have, counters have been added at the bottom of the News pages. Since this page is the "default" opening page in each case it is likely to provide a reasonably true picture on the number of visits. As the counting is performed by an other server than that of the IEC/CO the picture of the counter may be loaded with a slight delay which, however, does not affect the loading of the upper part of the News page.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-12-03
The validation process of the symbols in the IEC 60617 database started
The validation process of the symbols loaded by the IEC Central Office and structured by the IEC 60617 Loading Team was started on 1999-12-01.
The loading is almost completed and the structuring work is planned to be redy 1999-12-15. The target date for the completed validation is 2000-01-31.
The purpose of the validation in connection with the initial loading and structuring is to guarantee that the intents of the printed publication IEC 60617 is appropriately transferred to the database without technical losses, changes or additions, and is basically editorial.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-11-01
Meeting documents, including day report from the TC3 meeting available
All meeting documents from the meeting of TC3 in Kyoto 1999-10-28 and 29 are now available from the Kyoto meeting documents for TC3 page.
Attendees at the meeting are kindly requested to check the day reports and give their possible comments to the Secretary of TC3 before 1999-11-10.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-10-15
Meeting folder for the TC3 meeting available
A meeting folder, that includes circulated documents as well as most of the green meeting documents and other referenced documents, has been prepared for the TC3 meeting. The documents are all linked from the meeting aganda.
The folder can be downloaded from the Kyoto meeting documents for TC3 page as a .zip file, that requires a software like Winzip for decompression, and as a self decompressing .exe file (that is slightly bigger than the .zip file).
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-10-08
The new database procedures for graphical symbols for diagrams is approved by the IEC/CA
The vototing on the new database based procedure for the maintenance of IEC 60617 - described in document 3/539B/INF and circulated for voting to the Committee of Action as document CA/152/QP - is now closed.
The new procedure was approved (10 in favour, 3 abstentions, and 2 no replies). The result of the voting is described in document CA/1593/RV.
The procedure is to be implemented for a trial period of two years, following the complete installation of the database.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-10-08
Voting on 3/545/FDIS closed - 100% in favour
The voting on document 3/545/FDIS Circulation for voting on ISO/DIS 10303-210: Electronic assembly, interconnect and packaging design, is now closed.
The result was 100 % for approval (15 P-members voting) plus additionally 5 abstentions.
The result means that the standard is now to be published as ISO 10303-210 with double logos.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-09-17
Documents for the Kyoto meeting
The last set of documents to be officially circulated before the Kyoto meeting has today been put on TC3 web site, and sent to the IEC/CO. They include documents up to and including 3/556/INF.
Documents to be distributed from now on will be numbered as meeting documents. They will also be put on the server as soon as they are available. National Committees that intend to submit meeting documents are recommended to send them to the Secretary as soon as they are ready. They will then be put on the site and can be made availble as early as possible for the other delegates, and also included in the zipped documentation set I intend to create in the end of the week before the meeting - convenient for the author and convenient for the other delegates!
The draft agend has been revised accordingly, document 3/543A/DA.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-09-14
The TC3 Workshop to be broadcast using Internet Multicast Backbone (MBone)
As a trial, some events such as the IT seminar and IEC TC3/Workshop will be telecast with permission of the organizers, to those who are not present at the meeting rooms in the 63 rd IEC General Meeting in Kyoto, using networked audio and video, including people who are at the other rooms in the meeting premises.
It will be made possible by IP multicasting encoded audio and video to a multicast backbone, which is also known as MBone – a virtual worldwide internetworking playgroud over the Internet. Unlimited number of people can watch the same multicast without increasing trafic as a whole. The people can join the multicast session as they like and leave the session any time when they wish.
Meeting of the Validation Team VT IEC 60617 in Kyoto
Following the circulation of the document 3/537/AC the nominations to the Validation Team (VT) for the maintenance of IEC 60617 has been received and the VT set up, see annex to document 3/553/INF. At the moment the VT shall be considered as a provisional one, before a database procedure for the maintenance of IEC 60617 (see document 3/539B/INF) will be approved by the Committee of Action.
NOTE - This should also be considered as the initial membership of the Validation Team. Since the Validation Team is intended to represent all the National Committees taking part in the work (P-members), National Committees which have not yet appointed any delegate (with deputy) are conntinuously invited to do so.
In order to proceed immediately with the work, the first informal meeting of the Validation Team is to be held in Kyoto in the frame of the General Meeting of the IEC.
The meeting will take place on 26th and 27th October 1999, starting at 9:00 a.m. and will replace the meeting of the Maintenance Team MT 60617 originally scheduled in the official programme for Kyoto (see also document 35B/AC). There will be no meeting of the Maintenance Team MT 60617 in Kyoto since this team does not exist at the time being.
The main purpose of the meeting of the Validation Team is to discuss practical application of the database procedure according to the document 3/539B/INF, a further development of Task II of the former SC 3A/WG 1 and a splitting of work. A detailed programme will be circulated later.
The members of the Validation Team and the delegates which have been already registered to the MT 60617 in Kyoto will be instructed separately by the Assistant Secretary of TC 3.
/A. Fornalski
1999-08-17
Database based procedure for the maintenance of IEC 60617 and other symbols standards and collections of items
The commenting on document 3/539A/DC is finished and a compilation of comments, document 3/548/INF has been prepared. The comments did not result in any fundamental changes to the document, but some required times have been extended, and some clarifications have been made. As a result of the comments the original document has been revised. The revised version is available as 3/539B/INF.
This document is now being distributed to the National Committees for information and submitted to the Committee of Action for approval.
Experts active in the TC3 work in countries presently being members of the Committee of Action are kindly asked to brief their delegates on the database procedures if required.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-07-07
Difficult news about the circulation of jointly developed standards
The STEP APs 210 and 212 are the result of the work in the ISO/TC184/SC4 - IEC/TC3 JWG9. The projects are formally managed by ISO.
In order to get input from the IEC National Committees information documents have earlier been circulated within IEC directing the NCs to comment through their national member bodies of ISO.
ISO/DIS 10303-210 Electronic assembly, interconnect and packaging design, has now been formally approved for circulation as an FDIS. As the vote was 100% positive without negative technical comments, it is possible to decide in ISO to publish the document directly as an IS, without the need to vote on an FDIS. Such a decision has also been taken.
Since the document is the result of a joint work it has been assumed that the resulting standard should carry the logos of both organisations. However, this requires additionally the FDIS to be circulated in the other organisation (than the one managing the project) for formal voting. Consequently, document 3/545/FDIS is now circulating in IEC for formal voting.
The voting has no effect on the publication as such of the standard: If the voting is positive, the standard will carry both logos, if it is negative it will be published with ISO logo only.
ISO/DIS 10303-212 Electrotechnical design and installation, is now circulating for voting in ISO. Information about this has for some time been available on the TC3 web site as 3/544/INF. In order to avoid a later circulation of an FDIS, should the result of the CDV/DIS be similar to that for AP210, this document has now been formally turned into a CDV for voting within IEC: 3/544/CDV.
Commenting and voting on ISO/DIS 10303-212 is now therefore carried as for other IEC CDV documents, i.e. votes and comments are to be sent to the IEC/CO.
This additional procedural requirement will have effect on the processing also of other documents produced in Joint Working Groups, also where IEC is managing the projects and the FDIS therefore has to be circulated in ISO in order to get both logos.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-06-23
Oldest history of TC3 - can anybody help?
We, i.e. the Chairman of TC3, Mr. Bodin, and I, the Secretary of TC3, are studying the history of TC3, trying to trace it back to the point in time when the work on symbols really started. The information we have collected so far is availble on a separate web pages on the site: Plenary meetings of TC3 and History of TC3. Most of the information on the history page has been obtained thanks to the kind co-operation of the staff in the Central Office. There we have got the possibility to study the oldest records back to RM1. If, in the archives of the National Committees, or elsewhere, older documents exist, please contact us by e-mail. We are especially looking for Publication 1 to 33. Thanks in advance.
The draft agenda for the meeting of TC3 in Kyoto, 1999-10-28 -- 29, with the preliminary program for the associated workshop 1999-10-25, is now available as document 3/543/DA.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-05-31
Call for members to the Validation Team for IEC 60617
A call for members to the Validation Team for IEC 60617 Graphical symbols for diagrams (VT 60617), is now being circulated to the National Committees as document 3/537/AC.
The role of the Validation Team and the tasks of its members are described in the description for the new database based procedure for the maintenance of IEC 60617, document 3/539A/DC.
The use of the new procedure is expected to drastically reduce the time for the standardization of graphical symbols from initiation of the work to publication of the result, from years down to three months. The Validation Team, to which all National Committees are invited to appoint a member, is the key to this improvement in addition to the use of a database for information sharing during the standardization process and for the publication of the result.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-04-26
TC3 Co-ordination meeting in Madrid
The co-ordination meeting with Chairmen, Secretaries and Convenors of TC3 with SCs that is regularly held between the plenary meetings of the committees took place 1999-04-13 -- 14 in Madrid, with participation of Spanish experts.
At the meeting the present status of the work was reviewed, and the plenary meeting to be held in Kyoto this fall was planned. The unconfirmed minutes from the meeting is available as document 3(Madrid/Secretariat)8A.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-04-01
Training workshop on the loading of IEC 60617 into the graphical symbols database
The workshop on the loading of IEC 60617 into the graphical symbols database took place 1999-03-29 -- 30 in Geneva, with participants from Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden.
Mr. Maislisch from the IEC/CO, who has been in charge of the development of the database, demonstrated how the web interface for database works and the capabilities of the present operative implementation, including the initial overall loading of the contents of the existing IEC 60617 Ed. 2.
Possible problems as to the interpretation of the existing information and its distribution to the different fields were then discussed in the group: Mostly the loading is simple and straight forward, but in some cases the existing publication is laid out in a way so that a group of symbols form an complex network of basic symbols, examples, application notes, explicit and implicit references, etc. These complexes can also be loaded into the database, but they need to be analysed and sorted out before. In order to facilitate this work a set of rules were established.
The system, and the established rules, were then tried out at the loading of selected symbols of IEC 60617-3.
Conclusion was that the loading of a simple symbol is a matter of a few minutes, while the more complex groups initially requires a lot more time for the analysis.
It was agreed that Part 3 should be fully loaded by the participants until the April 12, so that it can be demonstrated to the Co-ordination meeting in Madrid the following days.
The loading will then continue with Parts 2, 11 and 7, which are planned to be ready before the end of July. The planning for the remaining parts is not yet fixed.
To support the work an e-mail exploder will be set up for the "loading group" which, in addition to the participants at the workshop, will be extended, e.g. with members from Japan.
The database is presently not publicly accessible.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-03-26
Database based procedure for IEC 60617
A new description of the database based procedure for the maintenance of IEC 60617 is now being circulated as document 3/539/DC. This document is a revision of document 3/526/INF as requested by the meeting in Charlottenlund. The document has also been reorganized in comparison with its predecessor in order to make easier to read.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-03-24
The Strategic Policy Statement for TC3 updated
The Strategic Policy Statement for TC3 has now been updated. It covers the parent committee together with the sub-committees in an "amalgamated" form. This means that it is now written as one SPS, and is only split on the different committees at the "lowest level" . The intent has been to focus the document that on what we are and will be doing, and less on organizational issues. Hopefully, this has change has improved the readability. The document is available as 3/540/SPS.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-03-24
Training workshop for the loading of IEC 60617 into the database for graphical symbols
The preparation of the database for graphical symbols is now being finished including final adjustments of the structure and the introduction of an interface for remote control via web browser.
Although there is a slippage in the time schedule a training workshop for experts appointed by the National Committees will be held as planned in Geneva 1999-03-29 -- -30. The call for experts for the loading, document 3/536/INF, has so far resulted in the nomination of 5 persons: from Denmark (2), France (1), Germany (1), Japan (1), Sweden (1). Mr. Maislisch IEC/CO, the Assistant Secretary, the Secretary and the Chairman of TC3 will also participate in the workshop.
/Per-Åke Svensson
1999-03-10
What has happened?
We have changed the structure of the TC3 web site and the appearance of the pages.
The committee pages we have used until now have become very long, forcing visitors to download and look at information that they may already know well and/or be not so interested in. There has also been a wish to make the site more "market oriented". Until now it has been almost entirely devoted to the internal work, and it has been assumed that a visitor is familiar to the IEC organization and way of working.
New home page for the entire TC3 site to give overview
The first step has then been to create a home page for the entire site, that is quickly downloaded, visible in its entirety without scrolling and giving the visitor a general overview of what kind of information that can be found on the site.
The site home page has been divided into two parts:
the upper part intended for "external" visitors that are not familiar to the committee structure, but may be interested in what the committees produces; and
the lower part intended for "internal" visitors for which the committee and working group structure is familiar.
The upper part has been divided in 8 market orientated parts taken from the "business environment" part of our new Strategic Policy Statement.
The lower part is simply divided into 4 parts for the committees.
For each market oriented part the intent is to make a page that presents the standards relevant and the ongoing projects. This will not follow the committee structure. The pages to be put here are in preparation and not yet linked.
Committee pages with fixed index
The main pages for each committee uses "frames". This has become quite normal today (it is included in HTML version 4.0). This technique makes it possible to keep an index in a "stable" window to the left and a "dynamic" content in the window to the right.
The window on the right hand side (where you read this text) present the different pages with content. These pages corresponds basically to the sections of the old committee pages. All new document lists etc. uses a table layout as a basis (even if the borders are not seen) which makes it easier to control the text. The width of the text is limited in order to make it easier to read.
In addition, these pages does not require any specialized web authoring tools for maintenance, but a word processor like Word 97 may be used. This will hopefully make it easier to decentralize the responsibility for the maintenance of working group and project pages to those persons who know best about these subjects, i.e. working group convenors and project leaders.
In some cases the old pages are still linked, but they will successively be replaced by pages with the new design.
Document and site management
Each page/document has identity number, revision information (index and date), document kind, title, issuer (maintainer), and "legal owner" shown.
The revision index is linked to a list of revisions, common to the whole site, which is used to give information on the latest updates.
This list of revisions is also linked directly from the site home page thus providing one easy way to find what has happened on the site lately (provided that those who put information on it update the list every time),
A site map, linked from the site home page, illustrates the design of the site. It is supplemented by a list of documents that lists all web pages. (Practical for the maintenance.)
News page
What you are looking at now is the news page for TC3. The news page comes as opening page in the right hand frame every time you open a committee page. The intent is that it should be used by the secretaries, chairmen, convenors or other persons, to give actual information on ongoing activities.
Still very little graphics!
The use of graphics is still very limited on the pages. This is because we know that many visitors accesses the site via telephone lines and modem, and we want to help keeping the telephone time short and the telephone bills low.
Possible transition difficulties
The transition from the old to the new design of the site may cause some initial difficulties with broken links, etc., since it is has not been possible to try out everything before going on-line, and all pages have not yet been converted to the new design. Some pages with information that has not up to date have deliberately not been linked yet. Please excuse us for this. We will do what we can to put everything in order as soon as possible.
