OREANDA-NEWS. April 07, 2011. The III International Scientific and Practical Conference "IRIS - Quality, Innovation and Modernisation" was held at the Renaissance Hotel in Moscow, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

The event was organised by Russia’s non-commercial Association of Railway Equipment Manufacturers, with support from Russian Railways, Siemens and the Union of Russian Engineering Companies.

The conference was attended by over 200 people from 130 companies and organisations, including representatives from Russian Railways, Russia’s legislative and executive authorities and the two international organisations the Association of the European Rail Industry (UNIFE) and International Railway Industry Standard (IRIS), as well as the heads of Russian and foreign railway engineering companies and representatives of the scientific and technical community.

The conference discussed the need to meet the requirements of the IRIS international standard using accepted business management methods. This provides for deep modernisation of the management of engineering enterprises to meet the needs of the Russian economy in rail transportation by creating new rail technology.

Russian Railways has approved and is now implementing new policy guidelines in the strategic management of the quality of products used by the Company. These set deadlines for bringing our business management systems into compliance with IRIS:

2010-2011 - action plans must be drawn up in cooperation with manufacturers to implement IRIS standards at engineering companies,

2012-2014 - switching to IRIS standards and the main quality tools,

Starting in 2015, Russian Railways plans to complete the strategic management system for product quality and purchase the required railway equipment and components only from companies certified as being in compliance with IRIS.

Russian Railways will also be giving priority to suppliers certified as being in compliance with the IRIS standard when purchasing railway equipment from May 2011.

On the eve of the conference, on 31 March 2011, a meeting of the IRIS Advisory Board took place in Moscow. Taking part were the president of the Association of Railway Equipment Manufacturers, the Senior Vice-President of Russian Railways Valentin Gapanovich, and Chairperson of the IRIS Hubert De-Blay.

The Advisory Board includes representatives of major rail equipment manufacturers, such as Alstom, Bombardier, Siemens and AnsaldoBreda, and also operators of rolling stock, including Russian Railways, SNCF-France, CFF/SBB-Switzerland.

Following the meeting, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between the Association of Railway Equipment Manufacturers and UNIFE with the aim of promoting and applying the IRIS standard in the production of rail equipment.