ARI Supplement: ARI Gives Air Conditioning Products Legitimacy
The Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) was officially organized in 1953, primarily to give this new industry a united voice. Secondarily, but perhaps more importantly, the Institute collected its technical forces to create standards against which A/C and refrigeration equipment could be tested, and to create industry-wide certification programs to verify the products’ performance.
Herb Phillips, a former ARI vice president of Engineering living in Rayslake, IL, noted, “Every time a poll is taken among its members, the development of standards and certification has been the number-one function of ARI.” It has other important functions, but the area of prime importance to the industry, said Phillips, is the development and maintenance of product standards and certification.