SMF Standards Development Organisation

SMF-SDO STEERING COMMITTEE

The SMF has been appointed by Enterprise Singapore as the Standards Development Organisation (SDO) since 1 April 2011. Under SMF-SDO, it manages four Standards Committees covering biomedical and health, food, quality and safety, and manufacturing.

SMF-SDO oversees the development of over 350 standards under the four Standards Committees, and manages about 23 Technical Committees and 87 Working Groups. It also oversees Singapore’s participation in 42 Participating memberships and ISO/IEC Technical Committees. For this financial year, it completed 50 standards, which are projected to be used by more than 2,000 companies in Singapore, and organised 18 promotional activities, covering standards launches, standards adoption workshops, strategic planning sessions, and media engagements.

SMF-SDO has also reached out and engaged more than 200 new standards partners to participate in the national standardisation programme.

Singapore is the first country in the world to introduce a national standard on design, development and validation of miRNA-based diagnostic, putting us at the forefront of the emerging trend in biotech and medical research.

MicroRNA(s) (miRNA(s)) are short non-coding RNAs that regulate the expression of target genes by binding to the 3’ untranslated region of the target Messenger RNA(s). It is a novel class of biomolecules discovered in the early 21st century and has continuously been the reason for breakthrough discoveries in biomedical research worldwide. As miRNA research has expanded into a large number of disease areas, it has become clear that expression levels of certain miRNAs are altered in different diseases. As such, the potential of these small non-coding RNAs as biomarkers has become obvious, and exploiting it has become a focus for researchers around the globe.

SS 656:2020 describes key considerations for the design, development and performance evaluation of miRNAbased molecular diagnostic assays. It also provides guidance for the development process and the design of the analytical and clinical performance evaluation studies of the assay based on its defined intended purpose(s). The considerations described in this standard are applicable to all miRNA-based diagnostic assays including commercial in vitro diagnostic assays and also for assays developed and used within clinical laboratories for diagnostic purposes.

The standard was launched virtually on 4 September 2020 by SMF-SDO where members from the working group provided an overview of the standard. They also shared the application of SS 656 for miRNA from research to commercialisation, its application in a clinical diagnostics setting, and how it ties in with regulators and supports them.

Additive Manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, is seen as a transformative technology for every industry sectors.

To equip local additive manufacturing (AM) companies, especially new entrants, with industry best practices on the safe setup, operations and maintenance of AM facilities in Singapore, Second Minister for Trade and Industry Dr Tan See Leng launched a new technical reference (TR) 87 on “Safety of Additive Manufacturing Facilities” on 31 March 2021. The TR was developed by one of the SMF-SDO’s Working Group, which are appointed by the Technical Committee for Additive Manufacturing.

TR 87 enables companies in AM to take advantage of Singapore’s robust quality and standards ecosystem to seize new opportunities in supporting the high value operations of global manufacturing companies anchored in Singapore. The TR promotes the use of a safety framework for AM facilities and to manage hazardous materials, such as fine metal powders, which is a key ingredient in the AM process that are typically microscopic in size, can pose a health hazard to workers, and be toxic to the environment.

To boost demand for local produce and achieve Singapore’s “30 by 30” goal, which is to meet 30 percent of our nutritional needs locally by 2030, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), Enterprise Singapore, SMF-SDO and Republic Polytechnic launched a new Singapore standard for local farms known as “SS 661:2020 Specification for clean and green urban farms – agriculture” on 26 March 2021. The new standard will assure consumers that produce from local vegetable farms are fresh, free from synthetic pesticides, and grown sustainably with efficient use of resources without compromising the environment.

The SS 661 sets out criteria that urban vegetable farms have to meet in terms of farm management, techniques and practices to achieve a clean and green production system. This ranges from employees’ minimum competency requirements, plans for the responsible management of resources, green procurement practices, farm operations to procedures for handling customers’ complaints, farm product recalls and conducting internal audits. The standard will also help vegetable farms adopt smart farming techniques and practices to reduce wastage of resources, incorporate circularity in their resource management, and optimise operational efficiency.