bmta.co.uk
WHAT IS A STANDARD?
By Paul Greenwood
Divisional Director (Laboratories)
United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)
Standards provide people and organisations with a basis for mutual understanding; an agreed way of
doing something. They are used as tools to facilitate communication, measurement, commerce and
manufacturing by defining agreed best practice on how a product is made, a process is managed, a
service is delivered or materials are supplied. Standards can cover a huge range of activities undertaken
by organisations and used by their customers, and in some cases define how something is expected to
perform rather than precisely how it is made or delivered.
Standards are everywhere and play an important role in the economy, by:
Enabling companies to comply with relevant laws and regulations
Providing interoperability between new and existing products, services and processes.
Facilitating business interactions both nationally and internationally
Standards are the distilled wisdom of people with expertise in their subject area, and knowledge of the
needs of the organisations they represent. These people include manufacturers, sellers, buyers,
customers, trade associations, users and regulators. Standardisation is voluntary cooperation among
industry, consumers, public authorities, researchers and other interested parties for the development of
technical specifications based on consensus.
The point of a standard is to provide a reliable basis for people to share the same expectations about a
product or service.
Long-time to create
International Standards (ISO)
(created by representatives from many countries for anyone to use)
European Standards (EN)
(created by representatives from all European Union countries for anyone to use)
British Standards (BS)
(created by representatives from a wide number of groups or organisations
for anyone to use)
Publicly Available Specifications
(e.g. written for a small group of organisations but
available for anyone to use
Private Standards
(e.g. created by a single company
or group of companies only for
their use)
Company
Materials
(e.g. Handbooks
for use of the
company)
Short-
time to
create