BS 8888:2010

We are now starting to plan the next revision of BS 8888, which is due out in October 2010.

BS 8888 is currently up-dated every two years. I think this is far too frequent, and in principle, I would like the standard to be much more stable, and only up-dated every four or five years. This has been one of my objectives since I took over the chair of TDW/4/8, which is responsible for BS 8888.

However, BS 8888 acts as an interface to the ISO system of standards, and has to be kept up-to-date with changes in the ISO system, and this is what fundamentally drives the revision cycle.

In recent years, there have been a lot of developments within the ISO standards, and BS 8888 has had to change frequently to keep abreast of these changes. Right now, there are some more major changes in the pipeline, and a further revision of BS 8888 for 2010 is unavoidable.

So what changes are on the way? Four major ones at least:-

1. Amendment 1 to ISO 1101 (the main ISO standard for geometrical tolerancing).

This mainly deals with 3D annotation.

2. Amendment 2 to ISO 1101.

This introduces some new symbols, and also extends the system in several ways. For instance, some of the filtration options which can be used with surface texture specifications will be available for form tolerances.

3. ISO 5459

This is a major up-date of the datum standard, which is long over-due.

4. ISO 14405.

This is a new standard for linear sizes. It will replace ISO 8015, and provide a more comprehensive range of options for how we define sizes of features.


I'll give further details about some of these developments in future posts.