What is BS EN 61360‑6 - IEC CDD quality guidelines for electric components about?  
The IEC 61360 series as a whole specifies a general purpose dictionary of technical terms covering the field of electrotechnology, electronics and related domains.
BS EN 61360‑6 is the sixth part of the series that discusses standard data element types with an associated classification scheme for electric components for IEC Common Data Dictionary (IEC CDD) quality guidelines.
BS EN 61360‑6 provides guidance for the definition of concepts that are used to describe classes and properties submitted for an update of the content of the IEC Common Data Dictionary (IEC CDD). This includes:
- A basic understanding of key concepts and procedures used within IEC CDD
- A binding reference for quality control of IEC 61360 compliant dictionary content
- Guidance on documents where necessary in-depth knowledge can be acquired (see Clause 2 and Annex D).
Who is BS EN 61360‑6 - IEC CDD quality guidelines for electric components for? 
BS EN 61360‑6 on IEC Common Data Dictionary (IEC CDD) quality guidelines for: 
- Manufacturers of electric and electromechanical components
- Information technology industry
- Engineers
- Technical experts
- Data integration professionals
- Software developers and programmers
Why should you use BS EN 61360‑6 - IEC CDD quality guidelines for electric components?  
The use of product data is an essential part of electronic business. Product selection, business transactions, maintenance procedures, etc., rely on the availability of data about products and services. To ensure a common understanding and a general treatment of product data, classification and dictionary systems are used to define their essential technical parameters or to categorize products.
The standards of the IEC 61360 series specify rules for the structure and content of collections of product properties and its classification structures. In most cases, the classes and properties contained in such collections are intuitively understandable. But, unfortunately, creating the information objects and their textual content, such as definitions, has proved to be a demanding task with potential pitfalls and problems. For avoiding such difficulties explanatory material and sections of other standards are collected in BS EN 61360‑6, providing the necessary knowledge for successfully creating classes and properties.
BS EN 61360‑6 includes the following subjects:
- Basic overview about fundamental concepts of IEC 61360
- Formulating definitions and other textual elements
- Overview of IEC maintenance procedure for IEC CDD
- Checklist for providing input to the IEC CDD content.
Thus, BS EN 61360‑6 provides guidance for specifying the information content of IEC 61360 classes and properties. As a result, by using the dictionary, applications can interact and share data in an unambiguous way free from semantic uncertainties.
