Standards
A standard is a published document that contains a technical specification or other precise criteria designed to be used consistently as a rule, guideline, or definition. All standards take the form of either: specifications, methods, vocabularies, codes of practice or guides.
All formal standards are developed with a period of public enquiry and full consultation. They incorporate the views and expertise of a very wide range of interests from consumers, academia, special interest groups, government, business and industry. As a result, standards represent a consensus on current best practice.
Standards are designed for voluntary use and do not impose any regulations. However, laws and regulations may refer to certain standards and make compliance with them compulsory. For example, the physical characteristics and format of credit cards is set out in standard number BS EN ISO/IEC 7810:1996. Adhering to this standard means that the cards can be used worldwide.
As the UK’s National Standards Body, BSI is responsible for producing and publishing British Standards and for representing UK interests in international and European standards organizations such as ISO, IEC, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. Formal British Standards are titled BS (for British Standard) XXXX:YYYY where XXXX is the number of the standard, P is the number of the part of the standard (where the standard is split into multiple parts) and YYYY is the year of publication.
BSI produces standards on a wide range of products, services and processes; from nuts and bolts to sustainability, risk, business continuity management and nanotechnology.
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Famous quotes containing the word standards:
“With his brows knit, his mind made up, his will resolved and resistless, he advances, crashing his way through the host of weak, half-formed, dilettante opinions, honest and dishonest ways of thinking, with their standards raised, sentimentalities and conjectures, and tramples them all into dust. See how he prevails; you don’t even hear the groans of the wounded and dying.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“That’s the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“A generation which has passed through the shop has absorbed standards and ambitions which are not of those of spaciousness, and cannot get away from them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they naturally have in view the greatest possible benefit, profit and that end of the stuff that will make the best show.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)