How to make China's LED standards more binding?

Standards have always been one of the hot topics in the LED industry, and the lack of standards and lagging standards have always been bottlenecks in the development of the LED industry. In 2010, national and industry standards related to LED were intensively issued, but whether these standards can truly become guidelines for enterprise production still requires the test of time. At the current stage, how to formulate China's LED national standards, industry standards, local standards, enterprise standards, etc. requires serious consideration from all sectors. A coordinated and mutually complementary standard system should be established to regulate products and market behavior.

From the perspective of industry standards and market supervision, the formulation of standards and regulations is undoubtedly very important for the healthy and orderly development of the industry. Standards themselves can have multiple levels: national standards should pay attention to alignment with international standards; local standards should not only comply with the basic norms of national standards but also regulate corresponding requirements based on local road and climate characteristics, serving as a supplement to national standards. Therefore, continuously discovering problems and improving through practice, and continuously perfecting standards, is of great significance for promoting and improving national standards. From another perspective, at present, some enterprises believe that LED still lacks standards, which is also a misunderstanding. In the lighting field, standardization systems for lighting, lamps, construction projects, etc. are well established. In these fields, the main current problem is that there are standards that are not implemented and laws that are not followed. Therefore, on the one hand, we must strengthen the formulation of LED-related standards, and on the other hand, we must also publicize and implement existing standards.

However, it cannot be denied that the issuance of standards related to LED lighting in China is indeed relatively slow, and the reasons are multifaceted.

First, LED lighting involves multiple fields and industries. LED belongs to the traditional electronic components industry, and also belongs to the optical and optoelectronic industries. When it comes to lighting, LED also involves the lighting electrical appliances industry, light source industry, etc. From the perspective of standard formulation, since LED spans multiple industries, multi-party communication and coordination are required regarding the authority and responsibility for formulating standards;

Second, since LED lighting is a new technology, the professional committees of traditional industries have little understanding of it. China also lacks enterprises with sufficiently large scale and sufficient influence on the industry, which adds additional difficulty to the formulation of standards;

Third, LED technology is not yet a mature technology, and its technology has not been finalized. The rapid development and changes in technology also bring certain difficulties to the formulation of standards;

Fourth, the promotion and implementation efforts are insufficient.

#p#Subtitle#e#

In this regard, LED standard-setting may consider the following aspects:

First, the establishment of the standards system should fully leverage the collaborative cooperation among management, production, academia, and research institutes, capitalizing on the strengths of every link in the industry chain. Multiple leading units should be mobilized in a project-based manner to coordinate joint efforts, with thorough discussion and testing, and full reference to relevant international standards, so as to build a standards system suited to the development characteristics of China's industry. Standards are meant to safeguard the industry and must not become barriers set by certain enterprises for commercial interests;

Second, standards should be built upon relatively mature products or technologies. Some technologies and products have not yet been fully defined; if standards are rushed into being, they will constrain future product development and technological progress. Therefore, basic norms and standards such as terminology and testing methods may be considered, in order to regulate the market and end disorderly competition;

Third, the standards system includes national standards, local standards, and enterprise standards, which complement one another;

The continuous introduction of local standards has laid a solid foundation for the establishment of national standards. Enterprise standards and local standards are important components of the national standards system. For instance, enterprise standards, which are specific to the characteristic products of a particular enterprise, represent the concrete refinement and embodiment of national and local standards. Therefore, the formulation of enterprise and local standards should be more detailed, and enterprise standards should generally be higher than national standards;

Fourth, after the standards are issued, especially after mandatory standards are issued, the market supervision department should promptly establish systems for supervision, market access, certification, and testing, while strengthening the publicity and implementation of the standards.

With the deepening development of economic globalization and the increasingly fierce competition in the international market, the role and status of standards are becoming ever more prominent. Standards competition has become another form of competition that is deeper in level, higher in standard, and greater in influence, following product competition and brand competition. For the LED industry, the current top priority is to issue and release national standards as soon as possible, implement a standards strategy, promote technological progress in enterprises, enhance corporate competitiveness, and drive the healthy and orderly development of the LED industry.

(Editor: yuy)