Standards Committee Meetings in Europe Showcase Association’s Global Footprint

By Chris Jorgensen, senior director, next generation standards

Key Summary

• IPC held standards committee meetings in Europe to expand global participation
• Nearly 100 experts contributed updates that strengthen safety, reliability, and quality in IPC standards
• Key themes included CO₂e reporting, training advancements, and major updates to cornerstone standards
• Digital manufacturing groups advanced work on CFX, HERMES, traceability, and secure supply chain practices
• Regional collaboration ensures IPC standards reflect global industry needs

We recently held standards development committee meetings in Europe, enabling us to ensure meaningful participation on a global scale. By meeting in-region, the Association expands engagement among European engineers, manufacturers, and training organizations, particularly within highly active European-centric groups, ultimately strengthening international collaboration and ensuring IPC standards reflect global needs rather than a single geographic perspective.

For information on how you can participate in developing the standards critical to our industry, visit: https://www.electronics.org/ipc-standards

Top Themes and Observations

Over four days, nearly 100 people delivered meaningful updates and changes to IPC standards that help ensure the safety, reliability, and quality of numerous consumer, commercial, and industrial products that we rely on daily. While attending the committee meetings and conversing directly with our European members, the following themes emerged:

• Momentum toward a standardized CO₂e calculation and sustainability reporting framework
• Renewed and expanded European technical input on cornerstone standards J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610
• Major advancements in training and certification delivery, including new approaches for workmanship assessment and multilingual support
• Continued focus on advanced manufacturing topics such as high-voltage design, press-fit technology, 3D plastronics testing, and connected-factory data interoperability
• Strong cross-collaboration between digital manufacturing standards (CFX, HERMES, traceability, cybersecurity) to support secure, automated, and data-driven factories

THE DETAILS

Upon examining the themes more closely, several specific details about the meetings stood out:

• Task groups for IPC-A-610 and IPC J-STD-001 made regional dispositions of comments and aligned updates to workmanship criteria.
• The HERMES Standard task group advanced improved machine-to-machine communication for PCB assembly, discussing best practices and alignment with IPC-2591.
• The CFX task group continued its efforts on CFX v2.0 adoption and preparation for v2.1, with a focus on real-world factory use cases, MES integration, and broader interoperability across automation ecosystems. Committee members prioritized cybersecurity and supply chain trust, with the IPC-1792 task group pushing forward foundational work to strengthen validated secure supply chain practices, incident-notification approaches, and alignment with global frameworks.
• The IPC-1782 traceability group emphasized the need for enhanced digital traceability across the manufacturing chain, while the European Training and Translation teams advanced the delivery of updated training programs and multilingual content for the upcoming standard revisions.
• Discussions covered sustainability and product carbon reporting, with the IPC-1783/1783e task group refining CO₂e calculation methodologies, data quality scoring models, and early-adopter pathways to support industry-wide environmental reporting. 

EMERGING AND ASSEMBLY TECHNOLOGIES

The IPC-9206 Plastronics task group worked diligently to advance their newest development, which aims to tackle accelerated reliability testing for In-Mold Electronics (IME) and Molded Integrated Devices (MID). 

Also featured were assembly technologies for press-fit applications, including revisions to the IPC-9797 and IPC-HDBK-9798, which are critical to delivering high-reliability press-fit processes in manufacturing. 

SHAPING THE FUTURE OF IPC STANDARDS

Attending standards development committee meetings with our European members emphasized that we are a global organization, but we rely on the perspectives of our regional members to ensure that IPC Standards reflect the needs and realities of the entire electronics industry.