What is a standard?

A standard is a collection of agreed-upon principles or requirements designed to maintain consistency, safety, and quality within a specific field or industry.

Types of standards

  • Production and design standards
    Cover methods for manufacturing, designing, and drafting materials or products.
  • Evaluation and measurement standards
    Define consistent procedures for testing, analyzing, appraising, verifying, or measuring.
  • Communication and notation standards
    Establish uniform terms, abbreviations, symbols, marks, preferred numbers, and units.

Points to remember when using standards

  • Some standards are government-mandated while others are voluntary.  There may be penalties associated with not adhering to the standard. 
  • Standards are updated to keep pace with changing technology. Aways verify that you are consulting the current version. 
  • Older or superseded standards may still be useful in situations such as legal disputes involving products manufactured under an earlier version of the standard.  

Identifying standards

Most technical and professional standards follow a predictable naming structure. While each standards organization has its own conventions, a typical standard includes:

  1. The organization that produced the standard (often in abbreviated form)
  2. A report or standard number
  3. The year the standard was approved or last revised
  4. The title of the standard

Example: IEEE 1708-2014 – Wearable Cuffless Blood Pressure Measuring Devices

  • IEEE — The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the organization responsible for creating and maintaining the standard.
  • 1708 — The standard/report number
  • 2014 — The year of approval or publication
  • Wearable Cuffless Blood Pressure Measuring Devices — The full title of the standard, describing its scope and content.

Standards are created by a wide variety of organizations, including:

  • Professional societies (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE])
  • Industrial or manufacturing associations (e.g., American Wire Rope Manufacturers)
  • Governmental agencies (e.g., U.S. Department of Commerce - National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST])
  • Companies and non-profits (e.g., American National Standards Institute [ANSI])
  • International organizations (e.g., ​​​​​International Organization for Standardization [ISO])

Example standards

Learn more about standards