Technical standard

Last updated January 25, 2025

A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, and related management systems practices. A technical standard includes definition of terms; classification of components; delineation of procedures; specification of dimensions, materials, performance, designs, or operations; measurement of quality and quantity in describing materials, processes, products, systems, services, or practices; test methods and sampling procedures; or descriptions of fit and measurements of size or strength.^[1]

A technical standard may be developed privately or unilaterally, for example by a corporation, regulatory body, military, etc. Standards can also be developed by groups such as trade unions and trade associations. Standards organizations often have more diverse input and usually develop voluntary standards: these might become mandatory if adopted by a government (i.e., through legislation), business contract, etc.

The standardization process may be by edict or may involve the formal consensus of technical experts.

Types

The primary types of technical standards are:

A standard specification is an explicit set of requirements for an item, material, component, system or service. It is often used to formalize the technical aspects of a procurement agreement or contract.^[2] For example, there may be a specification for a turbine blade for a jet engine that defines the exact material and performance requirements.
A standard test method describes a definitive procedure that produces a test result. It may involve making a careful personal observation or conducting a highly technical measurement. For example, a physical property of a material is often affected by the precise method of testing: any reference to the property should therefore reference the test method used.
A standard practice or procedure gives a set of instructions for performing operations or functions. For example, there are detailed standard operating procedures for operation of a nuclear power plant.^[3]
A standard guide is general information or options that do not require a specific course of action.
A standard definition is formally established terminology.
Standard units , in physics and applied mathematics, are commonly accepted measurements of physical quantities.

Definitions

Technical standards are defined ^[4] as:

Voluntary consensus standards, which are standards developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies, domestic (national), regional and international.
Industry standards, also referred to as private standards, which are standards developed in the private sector but not in the full consensus process, typically requiring a financial contribution. UNIDO define private standards as three categories; Consortia standards, Civil society standards and Company-specific standards.^[5]
Government standards, which are standards developed by the government for its own uses.

Availability

Technical standards may exist as:

Public documents on the internet, public library, etc. (Some technical standards may be found at a major central library or at the library of a good technical university)
Published documents available for purchase
Private documents owned by an organization or corporation, used and circulated as the owner determines necessary or useful
Documents publicly available under intellectual property (copyright, etc.)^[6]
Closed or controlled documents that contain trade secrets or classified information

Geographic levels

When a geographically defined community must solve a community-wide coordination problem, it can adopt an existing standard or produce a new one. The main geographic levels are:

National standard: by National standards organizations. For example, Telecommunications Industry Association standards.
Regional standard: see standards of the Regional standards organizations. For example, CEN standards.
International standard: see International standards organizations Example, ISO and ASTM International.

National/Regional/International standards is one way of overcoming technical barriers in inter-local or inter-regional commerce caused by differences among technical regulations and standards developed independently and separately by each local, local standards organisation, or local company. Technical barriers arise when different groups come together, each with a large user base, doing some well established thing that between them is mutually incompatible. Establishing national/regional/international standards is one way of preventing or overcoming this problem. To further support this, the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee published the "Six Principles" guiding members in the development of international standards.^[7]

Usage

The existence of a published standard does not imply that it is always useful or correct. For example, if an item complies with a certain standard, there is not necessarily assurance that it is fit for any particular use. The people who use the item or service (engineers, trade unions, etc.) or specify it (building codes, government, industry, etc.) have the responsibility to consider the available standards, specify the correct one, enforce compliance, and use the item correctly. Validation of suitability is necessary.

Standards often get reviewed, revised and updated on a regular basis. It is critical that the most current version of a published standard be used or referenced. The originator or standard writing body often has the current versions listed on its web site.

In social sciences, including economics, a standard is useful if it is a solution to a coordination problem: it emerges from situations in which all parties realize mutual gains, but only by making mutually consistent decisions.

Examples:

Parties	Mutual gains	Problem	Solution
Mechanical industry companies	Suppliers interchange, stock gains, etc.	Screw thread compatibility	Screw thread standard specifications
Pharmaceutical industry and medic community	Enable medical prescriptions, suppliers interchange, etc.	Drug uniformity	Drug standard specifications
Banks and specialized payment cards companies	Enable Credit card holder to pay a merchant for goods and services	Credit card uniformity	Credit card Technical specifications

Private Standards (consortia)

Private standards are developed by private entities such as companies, non-governmental organizations or private sector multi-stakeholder initiatives, also referred to as multistakeholder governance. Not all technical standards are created equal. In the development of a technical standard, private standards adopt a non-consensus process in comparison to voluntary consensus standards. This is explained in the paper International standards and private standards.^[8]

The International Trade Centre published a literature review series with technical papers on the impacts of private standards^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12] and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a number of papers in relation to the proliferation of private food safety standards in the agri-food industry, mostly driven by standard harmonization under the multistakeholder governance of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16] With concerns around private standards and technical barriers to trade (TBT), and unable to adhere to the TBT Committee's Six Principles for the development of international standards because private standards are non-consensus, the WTO does not rule out the possibility that the actions of private standard-setting bodies may be subject to WTO law.^[17]^[18]

BSI Group compared private food safety standards with "plugs and sockets", explaining the food sector is full of "confusion and complexity". Also, "the multiplicity of standards and assurance schemes has created a fragmented and inefficient supply chain structure imposing unnecessary costs on businesses that have no choice but to pass on to consumers".^[19] BSI provide examples of other sectors working with a single international standard; ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environment), ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety), ISO 27001 (information security) and ISO 22301 (business continuity). Another example of a sector working with a single international standard is ISO 13485 (medical devices), which is adopted by the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF).

In 2020, Fairtrade International, and in 2021, Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) issued position statements^[20]^[21] defending their use of private standards in response to reports from The Institute for Multi-Stakeholder Initiative Integrity (MSI Integrity)^[22] and Greenpeace.^[23]

Private standards typically require a financial contribution in terms of an annual fee from the organizations who adopt the standard. Corporations are encouraged to join the board of governance of the standard owner^[24] which enables reciprocity. Meaning corporations have permission to exert influence over the requirements in the standard, and in return the same corporations promote the standards in their supply chains which generates revenue and profit for the standard owner. Financial incentives with private standards can result in a perverse incentive, where some private standards are created solely with the intent of generating money. BRCGS, as scheme owner of private standards, was acquired in 2016 by LGC Ltd who were owned by private equity company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.^[25] This acquisition triggered substantial increases in BRCGS annual fees.^[26] In 2019, LGC Ltd was sold to private equity companies Cinven and Astorg.^[27]

Related Research Articles

The American National Standards Institute is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international standards so that American products can be used worldwide.

The International Organization for Standardization, French: Organisation internationale de normalisation, is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries.

An international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Other prominent international standards organizations including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Together, these three organizations have formed the World Standards Cooperation alliance.

Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization can help maximize compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, efficiency, and quality. It can also facilitate a normalization of formerly custom processes.

A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is an organization whose primary function is developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise contributing to the usefulness of technical standards to those who employ them. Such an organization works to create uniformity across producers, consumers, government agencies, and other relevant parties regarding terminology, product specifications, protocols, and more. Its goals could include ensuring that Company A's external hard drive works on Company B's computer, an individual's blood pressure measures the same with Company C's sphygmomanometer as it does with Company D's, or that all shirts that should not be ironed have the same icon on the label.

Ecolabels and Green Stickers are labeling systems for food and consumer products. The use of ecolabels is voluntary, whereas green stickers are mandated by law; for example, in North America major appliances and automobiles use Energy Star. They are a form of sustainability measurement directed at consumers, intended to make it easy to take environmental concerns into account when shopping. Some labels quantify pollution or energy consumption by way of index scores or units of measurement, while others assert compliance with a set of practices or minimum requirements for sustainability or reduction of harm to the environment. Many ecolabels are focused on minimising the negative ecological impacts of primary production or resource extraction in a given sector or commodity through a set of good practices that are captured in a sustainability standard. Through a verification process, usually referred to as "certification", a farm, forest, fishery, or mine can show that it complies with a standard and earn the right to sell its products as certified through the supply chain, often resulting in a consumer-facing ecolabel.

Certified wood and paper products come from responsibly managed forests – as defined by a particular standard. With third-party forest certification, an independent standards setting organization (SSO) develops standards for good forest management, and independent auditing companies issue certificates to forest operations that comply with those standards.

The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization which promotes sustainable forest management through independent third-party certification. As of 2006, it was considered the certification system of choice for small forest owners in Europe.

European Standards, sometimes called Euronorm, are technical standards which have been ratified by one of the three European Standards Organizations (ESO): European Committee for Standardization (CEN), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), or European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). All ENs are designed and created by all standards organizations and interested parties through a transparent, open, and consensual process.

ISO 22000 is a food safety management system by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which is outcome focused, providing requirements for any organization in the food industry with objective to help to improve overall performance in food safety. These standards are intended to ensure safety in the global food supply chain. The standards involve the overall guidelines for food safety management and also focuses on traceability in the feed and food chain.

The International Trade Centre (ITC) is a multilateral agency which has a joint mandate with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations (UN) through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

A Publicly Available Specification or PAS is a standardization document that closely resembles a formal standard in structure and format but which has a different development model. The objective of a Publicly Available Specification is to speed up standardization. PASs are often produced in response to an urgent market need.

A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard.

The Standardization Administration of China is an external name of the State Administration for Market Regulation. Prior to 2018, it was an administrative office under the State Council to exercise administrative responsibilities by undertaking unified management, supervision and overall coordination of standardization work in China.

Technical barriers to trade (TBTs), a category of nontariff barriers to trade, are the widely divergent measures that countries use to regulate markets, protect their consumers, or preserve their natural resources, but they also can be used to discriminate against imports in order to protect domestic industries.

The Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) is a private organization that works as a "coalition of action" from the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) and brings together retailers and brand owners (manufacturers) from across the CGF membership. The GFSI operates under multi-stakeholder governance, with the objective to create "an extended food safety community to oversee food safety standards for businesses and help provide access to safe food for people everywhere". GFSI's work in benchmarking and harmonization aims to foster mutual acceptance of GFSI-recognized certification programs across the industry, with the ambition to enable a "once certified, accepted everywhere" approach.

Sustainability standards and certifications are voluntary guidelines used by producers, manufacturers, traders, retailers, and service providers to demonstrate their commitment to good environmental, social, ethical, and food safety practices. There are over 400 such standards across the world.

Multistakeholder governance is a practice of governance that employs bringing multiple stakeholders together to participate in dialogue, decision making, and implementation of responses to jointly perceived problems. The principle behind such a structure is that if enough input is provided by multiple types of actors involved in a question, the eventual consensual decision gains more legitimacy, and can be more effectively implemented than a traditional state-based response. While the evolution of multistakeholder governance is occurring principally at the international level, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are domestic analogues.

Harmonization is the process of minimizing redundant or conflicting standards which may have evolved independently. The name is also an analogy to the process to harmonizing discordant music.

Vanessa Erogbogbo is a Ugandan private sector development specialist who focuses on sustainable trade. She is the chief of the Green and Inclusive Value Chains Section at the International Trade Centre (ITC).

References

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