Irma Rustemi has been nominated Chair of IEC Technical Committee 61, which prepares safety standards for household appliances. She will take on the role until April 2028. She replaces Fabio Gargantini, who deceased earlier this year.
A masters graduate in electronics engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Ms Rustemi has held a series of senior positions at Electrolux, culminating in her current role as Group Systems Engineering Regulatory Affairs Manager. Prior to that, she was a Senior Engineer at Whirlpool Corporation.
Ms Rustemi started contributing to IEC standardization work in 2002. She headed subcommittee 59K?which prepares performance standards for cooking appliances and under her leadership, her team notably delivered several performance standards, including IEC 60350-1 and IEC 60350-2.
She became involved with TC 61 in 2008 and was nominated Convenor of MT 23 whose scope is to maintain a variety of clauses and annexes in the IEC 60335 series of standards involving electronic circuits, insulation coordination, remote communication and cybersecurity.
"The household appliance industry is pushing for progress and providing highly innovative solutions which require international standards that help them to meet the highest performance, quality and safety benchmarks. International standards are key to ensure fair competition and the international exchange of products and services. The IoT and digitalization of all sectors are playing an increasing role, alongside restrictions needed to guarantee the security of operations and allow all consumers worldwide to safely live their digital lives with their digital products. Artificial intelligence, digital twin concepts, automation of processes, data space are being more and more focused upon by industry and all these concepts are ushering in new ways of designing and working. In my role as TC 61 Chair, I intend to work on the implementation of a new strategic business plan and to strengthen the global application of IEC TC 61 Standards. Based on my knowledge and my experience, I would like to favour cooperation with all TC members to move standardization ahead in these new areas of technology development," she commented.
(Source: IEC)