5.2.2. What is Standardization?

Have you ever given any thought to the amount of standardization that was required to allow you to use your credit card around the world? Probably not. Standardization is invisible and standards that work are taken for granted. So what is standardization?

Standardization is the process of producing an agreement on the technical specifications or other precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or definitions of characteristics to ensure that materials, products, services, processes and systems are interconnected and interoperable. In other words, the process that leads to an agreement that will make things work together.

At the international level, "this is achieved through consensus agreements between national delegations representing all the economic stakeholders concerned - suppliers, users, government regulators and other interest groups, such as consumers. They agree on specifications and criteria to be applied consistently in the classification of materials, in the manufacture and supply of products, in testing and analysis, in terminology and in the provision of services. In this way, International Standards provide a reference framework, or a common technological language, between suppliers and their customers - which facilitates trade and the transfer of technology."

(taken from http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/aboutiso/
introduction/index.html#one (www))

The result of the standardization process is a standard.

ISO/IEC Guide 2, 1996 defines a standard as "a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context."

When applied to terminology, standardization leads to an agreement as to which technical terms will be used in a standard and specifies the characteristics by which the selected terms are to be understood. This provides standardizing groups with the tools to draft terminologically and conceptually consistent standards.