ARLINGTON, VA — The Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) recently adopted an Internet-based virtual meeting system to help reduce the cost of member participation in standards development and to speed up the standards process.

According to the organization, the new system allows ARI section members to use their personal computers and a telephone to dial into the ARI/ PlaceWare website to either draft or edit standards in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel Documents.

“ARI can call virtual meetings to work on standards at any time the work is ready to be done,” said Mike Woodford, assistant vice president of Engineering and Research.

During the virtual meeting, parti-cipants are able to suggest changes to text and graphs, and see them immediately.

Also, ARI has published two new standards that can be found at the association’s website. ARI Standard 390-2001 “Single Package Vertical Air-Conditioners and Heat Pumps” and revised ARI Standard 340/360-2000 “Commercial and Industrial Unitary Air Conditioning and Heat Pump Equipment” are available for free at www.ari.org (website).

Publication date: 07/02/2001