ArcelorMittal's High Strength Steels Project Wins 1st ILNAS Standardisation & Innovation Award

On Friday 14 October 2022, the Luxembourg Standardisation Organisation (OLN), the Luxembourg Institute for Standardisation, Accreditation, Safety and Quality of Products and Services (Institut luxembourgeois de la normalisation, de l'accréditation, de la sécurité et qualité des produits et services - ILNAS), in collaboration with the University of Luxembourg, organised a conference to celebrate World Standards Day.

The participants were able to discover the normative developments carried out within the framework of the national normative strategy 2020-2030 for the sectors of information and communication technologies (ICT), aerospace and construction, identified as carriers for the national economy. They were also able to learn about the progress of the joint ILNAS and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg research programme: "Technical Standardisation for Trustworthy ICT, Aerospace and Construction" (2021-2024). This year, the conference was also marked by the presentation of the new “ILNAS Standardisation and Innovation Award” trophy.

The conference was introduced by a word of welcome from Director of SnT, Prof Dr Björn Ottersten. In particular, he mentioned the research work carried out in recent years in the three areas mentioned above in collaboration with ILNAS. He also mentioned joint projects in terms of education and in particular the MTECH Master's "Technopreneurship: mastering smart ICT, standardisation and digital trust for enabling next generation of ICT solutions".

Dr Jean-Philippe Humbert, Deputy Director of ILNAS, then presented the national standardisation strategy 2020-2030 which fully enshrines technical standardisation as an inclusive tool for performance and excellence at the service of the economy. He gave an overview of the progress made within the four pillars defined in this strategy, which notably provide for the promotion of the use of standards and excellence in technical standardisation activities in the ICT, construction and aerospace.

Jérôme Hoerold, Head of the OLN, then presented the missions of his department. In particular, he explained how to actively participate as a national expert in the process of developing national, European and international standards and explained the possibilities for purchasing or consulting national, European and international standards in Luxembourg.

Nicolas Domenjoud, “ICT and Standardisation” sector manager at the OLN, presented the recent normative developments carried out within the framework of sectoral normative policies (ICT, aerospace and construction). For example, he detailed the sectoral normative analyses published by ILNAS, which provides an overview of technical standardisation for the three sectors, while encouraging national actors to become actively involved in the standardisation process. He also mentioned the technical standardisation reports published this year: “Technical Standardisation: addressing Cloud Computing challenges and supporting related ICT development” and “Management System Standards: Overview”.

Following additional presentations, the conference ended with the award ceremony for the new “ILNAS Standardisation and Innovation Award”, the concept of which was explained beforehand by Anika Ley, project manager at OLN. The first 2022 edition of the trophy rewarded the "High strength steels for the design of steel structures" project by ArcelorMittal (Steligence® and Global R&D) which offers innovative construction solutions using high-strength steel for the design of steel structures. The team in charge of the project has also largely contributed to the revision of Eurocode 3 to allow the use of these innovative products in the future. Jean-Marie Reiff, Director of ILNAS and Dr Jean-Philippe Humbert presented the trophy to Dr Marion Charlier who represented ArcelorMittal at this conference.

On behalf of ILNAS, Dr Jean-Philippe Humbert thanked all the standardisation delegates. The participants then continued discussing standardisation and its current and future developments in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg over a networking event.