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Standards Primer - Who Else Develops Standards?

International standards are developed by multinational organizations such as ISO - the International Organization for Standardization, and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). In these committees, voting is done by country, and ANSI is the official US representative. Here again, ANSI itself only participates at the policy level, leaving the actual standards committee activities to be administered by groups that it designates.

There are national standards bodies like ANSI in most other countries, as well. Examples are CSA in Canada, BSI in the United Kingdom, JSA in Japan and DIN in Germany. Each of these countries may have unique requirements for PPE.

This Web site has links to many international and national standards bodies.

First of all, what is a standard?
Where do standards come from?
What is ANSI?
Who develops ANSI standards?
Who else develops standards?
What is conformity assessment?
Where does OSHA fit in?
How do products get approved around the world?