Standards are official publications used in industry and trade to describe specifications and procedures. Standards provide rules and recommendations for: quality, safety, performance and construction, codes of practice, methods of testing, symbols and terminology.
Many organisations issue standards, including trade associations and government departments.
Standards are identifiable by a unique document code which usually includes a prefix (the prefix often identifies the country and publisher), and a number of publication year (e.g. AS 1816.1-2007).
Standards are "living" documents - up to 15% of them change every year. This is why standards may have current, draft, superseded or withdrawn versions.
|
Prefix |
Stands for |
|
AS |
Australian Standards |
|
ISO |
International Standards |
| BS | British Standards |
| EN | European Standards |
|
ANSI |
American National Standards Institute |
|
ASTM |
American Society for Testing & Materials |
|
IEEE |
Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers |
|
SMPTE |
Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers |
|
SMWW |
Standard Methods for the Examination of Water & Wastewater |
|
NCC |
National Construction Code |
|
BCA |
Building Code of Australia |
|
PCA |
Plumbing Code of Australia |
|
AASB |
Australian Accounting Standards Board |