Standards Development: The Starting Point of Conformity Assessment

The cosmos and the ways in which its constituent parts interact with one another are exquisite instances of early use of standardization. Around 20,000 years ago, ice age hunters used time-unit standards for the first time. Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin, a device for cleaning cotton fiber, way back in 1793 marked the beginning of standardization as an engineering endeavor. A standard is a written document that offers specifications, rules, requirements, or traits that may be applied consistently to guarantee that the goods, services, processes, and materials are appropriate and safe for the intended applications. Generally speaking, standards are created to ensure safety and high levels of reliability to save costs and improve flexibility, to encourage business, and to support the smooth operation of the society. By creating uniform norms that are widely understood and embraced, standards serve as the essential building blocks for the product development process. In addition to companies or other organizations creating standards for their own internal usage, national, regional, and international standards developing groups can also involve themselves in the process of creation and development of standards. An organization whose main duty is to develop, coordinate, promulgate, revise, amend, reissue, interpret, or otherwise contribute to the utility of technical standards to their users is known as a standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO). The standards development process at the national level is generally divided into three main activities phases: predevelopment activities, standard development organization processes, and postpublication outreach activities. International Standards are generally developed by ISO technical committees (TC) and subcommittees (SC) by a six-stage process. This chapter underlines every aspect and stage/process being involved in standard development in detail.