Standardisation aims at avoiding technical barriers to trade. The principles of International (ISO, IEC, ITU), European (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI), and national (DIN, DKE) standardisation bodies are involving all interested parties, participating by delegation, and issuing consensus based documents.
Specifications for products, processes etc. are developed by sectoral technical committees.
An international committee of 130 member countries (ISO/CASCO) is dedicated to develop guidelines and requirements for conformity assessment, which are endorsed on the European and national level.
Examples are standards for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories (ISO/IEC 17025), for the operation of inspections bodies (ISO/IEC 17020), and for product certification (ISO/IEC 17065, ISO/IEC 17067).
