"ISO standards offer a guarantee as an international worldwide reference," says Edouard Michelin, Managing Partner of the Michelin Group, in an exclusive interview in the May 2005 issue of ISO Focus (www.iso.org/isofocus), the magazine of the International Organization for Standardization.

"In the future," Michelin tells ISO Focus, "an increasing demand for International Standards is foreseen in the automotive sector in answer to the two major needs expressed by society at the global level: improving the user's safety and reducing negative environmental impacts caused by land transportation."

As the world's number one tyre manufacturer, with 75 production plants in 19 countries, Michelin is committed to using ISO standards. "Michelin," says the company's head, "has decided to use ISO International Standards in order to comply with the requirements concerning quality and environmental management systems of vehicle manufacturers but also of the national authorities which deliver approval of tyres."

Edouard Michelin goes on to affirm his appreciation of how ISO standards contribute to the dissemination of technologies and good practices, facilitate trade and offer consensus-based mechanisms that ensure their acceptance by the market place and regulators. "In the global market," he says, "ISO standards are well adapted for the description of performance in use and measurement methods which can complete the essential elements for the construction of regulations and for the definition of quality management systems and conformity assessment."

ISO management system standards for quality and environment are fully integrated at industrial, administrative and commercial sites. "All our industrial sites are certified (or in the process of being certified) to the ISO 9000 family of standards or their equivalent," Edouard Michelin says in the interview. "More than 90% of finished products are manufactured in ISO 14001 certified sites."

Addressing the challenges of tomorrow will require concerted efforts, Michelin emphasizes: "In this context…the specialists in charge of building this standardization will be able to accompany or anticipate all technological innovations which will contribute to sustainable mobility. The international Michelin experts will have, to engage and to implicate themselves actively in these long-term strategic projects."

Born in 1963, Edouard Michelin has an engineering degree from Ecole Centrale de Paris. He joined Michelin in 1985 and has held various posts in the fields of research, production and sales: starting as Production Manager at the Puy-en-Velay (France) plant he then became CEO of Michelin North America, where he was in charge of both industrial plant and truck UOT sales and distribution. Co-opted as a Managing Partner in 1991, he joined François Michelin and René Zingraff in Clermont-Ferrand in mid-1993, and was appointed Michelin's new head at the Annual Shareholders Meeting on 11 June 1999.