The title of a standard – e.g. DIN EN 1335–1:2023–07: Office furniture – Office chairs – Part 1: Office furniture – Office work chair – Part 1: Dimensions – Determination of dimensions; German version EN 1335–1:2020+A1:2022 – not only indicates the content of the standard, but also provides information about the responsible standardisation bodies, the area of application and the age of the standard.
Publisher
DIN – DIN – Deutsches Institut für Normung e. V. (German Institute for Standardisation), based in Berlin. It is the national standardisation organisation of the Federal Republic of Germany.
CEN – European Committee for Standardisation. CEN’s competence covers all areas of standardisation except for electrical engineering and telecommunications. It currently has 34 national standardisation organisations as members. The official languages of CEN are English, French and German. CENELEC is responsible for European standards in the field of electrical engineering. CEN and CENELEC share a joint office in Brussels.
ISO – International Organisation for Standardisation. Like CEN, ISO is responsible for all areas of standardisation except for electrical and electronic engineering. More than 150 countries are now represented in ISO. Germany is represented by the German Institute for Standardisation (DIN). The official languages of ISO are English and French. The IEC is responsible for international standards in the field of electrical engineering. ISO and IEC are based in Geneva.
Area of Application
Who created a standard and where it applies is indicated by the abbreviations at the beginning.
DIN (e.g. DIN 33402–2) – DIN standard of national origin and predominantly national significance. However, it is not uncommon for other countries to refer to DIN standards.
DIN VDE – Standards of national origin that relate to electrical engineering, electronics and information technology and have been developed jointly by DKE and VDE.
DIN EN (e.g. DIN EN 527–1) – EN standard that has been incorporated into the DIN regulations. – EN standards must be adopted by the countries represented in CEN. If older national standards exist for a subject area, they must be withdrawn.
DIN EN ISO (e.g. DIN EN ISO 9241) – International standards that have been adopted into the European regulatory framework by the relevant CEN committees. As EN standards, they must be adopted by the countries represented in CEN.
DIN ISO – DIN standard whose content has been taken over unchanged from an ISO standard into the DIN regulations. – International (ISO) standards do not have to be incorporated into CEN regulations. In cases where the competent European standardisation bodies decide against adoption, the national standardisation bodies have the option of adopting the international standard directly into the national regulations.
DIN Spec (e.g. DIN SPEC 1133) – DIN specifications are documents that are below the standardisation level. A basic distinction is made between DIN SPEC, which were developed in a national or European standardisation committee (formerly known as ‘DIN technical reports’), and documents that were developed outside the regular standardisation committees. The latter may be company or industry standards, for example.
Draft standards are published for review and comment. Draft standards are identified by the suffixes E DIN or prEN.
Age
The date of issue of standards is often displayed directly after the standard number, separated by a colon. DIN EN 527–1:2011–08 therefore means that the standard was published in August 2011.
Standards must be reviewed by the relevant committees every five years. If the content of the standard is still current and relevant, its validity is extended for another five years.
