DAVIC has substantially innovated the way specification work is defined, approved and executed. Purpose of this paragraph is to give a brief description.
As other standard bodies DAVIC activities are structured on the basis of work items (WI). These are the new systems, tools, profiles and reference points that need to be added to the DAVIC specifications and at what time they are needed. The DAVIC workplan (WP) is the collection of all active and planned work items.
The WP is produced by the Board of Directors using a draft proposed by the Strategic Planning Committee. The proposed WP is submitted to the membership for comments and a final WP taking the comments into account is approved by the General Assembly. Complementary to the WP is the "Inventory of Standards and Specifications of potential DAVIC interest" produced by the Technology TC using information coming from standards bodies, industry consortia and individual members.
When a new WI is to be activated a Call for Proposals (CFP) is produced and made known to the membership and all interested parties. Submissions are screened to identify whether, for any of the items requested in the CFP, there is sufficient technology either through submissions or from available standards. If, for any item, insufficient technology is available, another call for these items is issued or a decision to develop the necessary technology internally is made.
Submissions retained for consideration and standards identified to be relevant for the work item are assigned to the appropriate TCs. On this occasion existing TCs may be disbanded and new TCs may be established to provide a better match between the kind of technologies to be specified for the particular new WI and the organisation of work. TCs are given a precise duration of time to produce the version of DAVIC specifications corresponding to the current work item.
A TC produces progressive revisions of the DAVIC specification part(s) assigned to it. In its technical work a TC is driven by the basic requirement of delivering specifications of the highest possible quality within the given deadline. A TC Chair will usually assign sufficient time to clarify an issue and will resort to membership voting when consensus cannot be reached. Of course only one tool may be specified for any functionality. As a principle, specifications draw elements from existing standards, but TCs, in making their decisions, also balance other criteria such as technical merit, cost and wide usage.
When specifications have reached a sufficient degree of maturity they are "frozen". The meaning of "frozen" is that all multiple choices for a DAVIC tool have been reduced to just one. When this is achieved the document is made public, i.e. known also outside the DAVIC membership, and comments are solicited from anybody.
DAVIC holds regular quarterly meetings which typically last five working days. DAVIC weeks usually involve all TCs and the MC. All work is done by Member representatives physically present at the meeting. The work of a DAVIC week is coordinated by the General Assembly meeting in plenary sessions. Plenaries are usually held three times, at the beginning of the first day, on the third day, and at the end of the fifth day. MC meetings are held every day at different times of the day, however, at the end of every working day TC Chairs and Vice Chairs are usually asked to join the MC.
The main purpose of a DAVIC week is to produce either the initial version or the next revision of the DAVIC specifications currently under development. Using the procedure described above the TCs work towards the goal of producing either the initial version or next revision of the part(s) of the specifications they are responsible for. The TCs attempt to reach a consensus on a sequence of issues and on rare occasions they may need to resort to TC membership voting.
Even though on certain issues there are joint TC meetings, the component parts of the specifications are usually so interrelated that daily harmonisation and coordination meetings are called at the initiative of the MC and are attended by TC Chairs and Vice Chairs as required. This process is usually repeated every day of the meeting.
A further synchronisation and consensus building point involving all delegates occurs at the mid-week plenary where short reports are made by the different TC Chairs on the progress of work of their TCs.
In the general case, because of the many synchronisation meetings, the recommendations proposed by the different TCs at the final plenary meeting are accepted, possible modifications being agreed upon by consensus. On certain rare occasions during the final plenary, an issue already resolved by one or more TCs during that week may be the subject of reconsideration if two or more members request a membership vote. At such time as the Chairman of the General Assembly deems that the issue has been sufficiently debated, a vote can be taken of all Members present.
The results of a DAVIC meeting are summarised in a set of approved resolutions, including the recommendations produced by the TCs.
Workplan and Specifications 
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