North American codes and standards: a global challenge

There has been an increasing emphasis on achieving international codes and standards for electrical installations and products. Although the benefits of unified documents and products worldwide seem obvious, the migration to such internationalization requires management that considers regional differences of elements such as: the presently installed base, practices used in construction, infrastructure and expectations of users. The North American electrical safety system has been developed carefully, is operating safely and is largely homogeneous. Because it is uniform, a single set of product standards for the region is presently realizable. There are elements of this system that should be preserved and perhaps captured in the worldwide system toward which we may be heading. This paper examines the hand-in-hand functioning of installation codes and product standards and their enforcement in North America as a strength to be recognized and preserved. These elements and their linkages are a foundation of the safety system to build upon.