The Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute(ARI) (Arlington, VA) 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.

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," says Mike Woodford, assistant vice president of Engineering and Research.