PARTICIPATING AS A MEMBER ON THE COMMITTEE

ASTM International opens its doors to all technical experts with an interest in the standardization process. As a member of ASTM Committee F04, you will be exposed to the robust resources and member benefits included below that have helped make ASTM a worldwide standards development leader for more than a century:

• Network with industry professionals worldwide
  
• Receive one free volume of the Annual Book of ASTM Standards (in print or CD)
  
• Use Internet-based Standards Development Forums and E-Balloting
  
• Receive discounts on all ASTM publications
  
• Keep up to date through a free subscription to ASTM’s monthly magazine - Standardization News
  
• Benefit from reduced fees for attendance at ASTM symposia and technical workshops
  
• And more
  
  

Members can participate from anywhere because of ASTM’s customized web-based systems. The best way to contribute as a member is to (1) participate in task group activities that are of interest (both virtually and in person), and (2) vote on ballots and provide feedback and recommendations. To participate in standards activities, start by identifying Work Items of interest by reviewing the List of Subcommittees, Standards, and Work Items on the F15 home page. Contact task group leaders for those areas of interest by reviewing the Work Item summary pages and securing contact information available through the on-line roster in the member area. To make the most of your voting and participation overall, be sure to stipulate which specific subcommittees you wish to participate in when you join so that you will receive notices of ballots that open within these groups.

MEETINGS

Due to the critical safety issues addressed by F15 subcommittees, the groups use conference calls, virtual meetings, and other electronic tools to accelerate standards development between meetings. Subcommittees meet independently on a schedule that accommodates the demands of their activities. The F15.90 Executive Subcommittee, elected officers of the main committee, meets four times per year in February, May, September, and December. The May and December meetings are combined with the F15 main committee meeting.

STAKEHOLDERS

This Committee is composed of many diverse interests, including manufacturers, users, retailers, testing laboratories, academicians, safety experts/consultants, consumer organizations, staff from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and consumers.

Consumers are extremely important to Committee F15 work. For people interested in consumer issues, standards activities provide a rich opportunity for involvement and change. Consumer representatives are often privy to important facts about the way that products, processes, and services are used. For example, consumer representatives made manufacturers aware that cooks often rest heavy items on oven doors while taking food from the oven or while basting. Because of consumer efforts, standards now exist to ensure oven doors are strong enough to hold turkeys, roasts, or heavy stew pots. Similarly, standards for school buses originally focused on technical requirements for the chassis, but injury and fatality data showed that driver visibility was a serious issue. A consumer representative provided the leadership necessary to improve the mirror and defrosting systems to ensure the safety of the driver and passengers. Committee F15 encourages consumer participation and provides affiliate membership (fee exempt) to all consumer members. There is also a program administered through the F15 Executive Subcommittee to subsidize travel costs for consumer representatives to attend subcommittee meetings.

LIAISON

Key Organizations

Committee F15 has an excellent partnership with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent federal regulatory agency charged with addressing unreasonable risks of death and injury associated with more than 15,000 types of consumer products. One way that the CPSC staff does this is to work with industry and other interested parties to develop voluntary product safety standards. Since CPSC’s establishment in 1972, its staff has been involved in the work of Committee F15 and other consumer-related ASTM committees. CPSC staff attends subcommittee meetings and works with task groups in areas of interest to the commission.

CPSC staff contributes technical expertise and data resources to the standards development process. Representatives usually have engineering backgrounds, but they have access to other CPSC professionals in the Directorates of Human Factors, Health Sciences and Toxicology, Economics, and Epidemiology. As one of their most important functions, CPSC representatives provide epidemiological information on injuries, deaths, and hazard patterns related to the use of particular product types to F15 subcommittees. With an understanding of hazard patterns, tests can be developed or revised to address the hazard.

CPSC receives death and injury data from different sources. These sources include consumers; manufacturers, which is required in certain cases under the Consumer Product Safety Act; medical examiners and coroners; news reports and newspaper clippings; death certificates; hospital emergency rooms through the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System; and in-depth investigations.

The Consumer Product Safety Act of 1972 established CPSC with the authority to issue and enforce mandatory product safety rules. CPSC’s early years were marked by the adoption of industry standards as mandatory rules and promulgation of new product regulations. Part 1031 of Title 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations sets forth the CPSC’s guidelines and requirements on participating in the activities of voluntary standards organizations. The Consumer Product Safety Act was amended in 1981 to strongly encourage the commission to take full account of voluntary standards in its consumer product safety efforts. Since 1990, CPSC staff has worked cooperatively with industry and other interested parties to complete seven times more voluntary standards than mandatory rules.

LINKS AND INFORMATION

The following websites have been identified by Committee F15 to contain information of interest.

American Academy of Pediatrics: www.aap.org

Consumer Federation of America: www.consumerfederation.org

Consumers Union: www.consumersunion.org

International Playground Equipment Manufacturer’s Association: www.ipema.org

Juvenile Products Manufacturer’s Association: www.jpma.org

Keeping Babies Safe: www.keepingbabiessafe.org

Kids In Danger: www.kidsindanger.org

National Safety Council: www.nsc.org

Safe Kids Worldwide: www.safekids.org

Toy Industries Association: www.toy-tia.org

Underwriters Laboratories: www.ul.com

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: www.cpsc.gov

International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization (ICPHSO): www.icphso.org