The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), (the preferred official pronunciation of the organizational name is: ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries.

Membership requirements are given in Article 3 of the ISO Statutes.

ISO was founded on 23 February 1947, and it has published over 25,000 international standards , covering almost all aspects of technology and manufacturing. It has over 800 technical committees (TCs) and subcommittees (SCs) to take care of standards development.

The organization develops and publishes international standards in technical and nontechnical fields, including everything from manufactured products and technology to food safety, transport, IT, agriculture, and healthcare. More specialized topics like electrical and electronic engineering are instead handled by the International Electrotechnical Commission.Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. 3 June 2021. "International Organization for Standardization". . Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2022-04-26. It is headquartered in Vernier, Switzerland. The three official languages of ISO are English, French, and Russian.

Name and abbreviations The International Organization for Standardization in French is and in Russian, ().

A common misconception is that ISO is an abbreviation for "International Standardization Organization" or a similar title in another language. In fact, the letters do not officially represent an acronym or initialism. The organization provides this explanation of the name:Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French), our founders decided to give it the short form ISO. ISO is derived from the Greek word (, meaning "equal"). Whatever the country, whatever the language, the short form of our name is always ISO.During the founding meetings of the new organization, however, the Greek word explanation was not invoked.

Both the name ISO and the ISO logo are registered trademarks and their use is restricted.

History The organization that is known today as ISO began in 1926 as the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA), which primarily focused on mechanical engineering. The ISA was suspended in 1942 during World War II but, after the war, the ISA was approached by the recently formed United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) with a proposal to form a new global standards body.

In October 1946, ISA and UNSCC delegates from 25 countries met in London and agreed to join forces to create the International Organization for Standardization. The organization officially began operations on 23 February 1947.

ISO Standards were originally known as ISO Recommendations (ISO/R), e.g., "ISO 1" was issued in 1951 as "ISO/R 1".

Structure and organization ISO is a voluntary organization whose members are recognized authorities on standards, each one representing one country. Members meet annually at a General Assembly to discuss the strategic objectives of ISO. The organization is coordinated by a central secretariat, based in Vernier, Canton of Geneva.

A council with a rotating membership of 20 member bodies provides guidance and governance, including setting the annual budget of the central secretariat.

The technical management board is responsible for more than 250 technical committees, who develop the ISO standards.

Joint technical committee with IEC

ISO has a joint technical committee (JTC) with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to develop standards relating to information technology (IT). Known as JTC 1 and entitled "Information technology", it was created in 1987 and its mission is "to develop worldwide Information and Communication Technology (ICT) standards for business and consumer applications."

There was previously also a JTC 2 that was created in 2009 for a joint project to establish common terminology for "standardization in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources". It was later disbanded.

Membership

, there are 175 national members representing ISO in their country, with each country having only one member.

ISO has three membership categories, Member bodies are national bodies considered the most representative standards body in each country. These are the only members of ISO that have voting rights. Correspondent members are countries that do not have their own standards organization. These members are informed about the work of ISO, but do not participate in standards promulgation. Subscriber members are countries with small economies. They pay reduced membership fees, but can follow the development of standards.

Participating members are called "P" members, as opposed to observing members, who are called "O" members.

Financing ISO is funded by a combination of: Organizations that manage the specific projects or loan experts to participate in the technical work Subscriptions from member bodies, whose subscriptions are in proportion to each country's gross national product and trade figures Sale of standards

International standards and other publications

International standards are the main products of ISO. It also publishes technical reports, technical specifications, publicly available specifications, technical corrigenda (corrections), and guides.The ISO directives are published in two distinct parts:

International standards These are designated using the format ISO[/IEC] [/ASTM] [IS] nnnnn[-p]:[yyyy] Title, where nnnnn is the number of the standard, p is an optional part number, yyyy is the year published, and Title describes the subject. IEC for International Electrotechnical Commission is included if the standard results from the work of ISO/IEC JTC 1 (the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee). ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) is used for standards developed in cooperation with ASTM International. yyyy and IS are not used for an incomplete or unpublished standard and, under some circumstances, may be left off the title of a published work.

Technical reports These are issued when a technical committee or subcommittee has collected data of a different kind from that normally published as an International Standard, such as references and explanations. The naming conventions for these are the same as for standards, except TR prepended instead of IS in the report's name.

For example: ISO/IEC TR 17799:2000 Code of Practice for Information Security Management ISO/TR 19033:2000 Technical product documentation – Metadata for construction documentation

Technical and publicly available specifications Technical specifications may be produced when "the subject in question is still under development or where for any other reason there is the future but not immediate possibility of an agreement to publish an International Standard". A publicly available specification is usually "an intermediate specification, published prior to the development of a full International Standard, or, in IEC may be a 'dual logo' publication published in collaboration with an external organization". By convention, both types of specification are named in a manner similar to the organization's technical reports.

For example: ISO/TS 16952-1:2006 Technical product documentation – Reference designation system – Part 1: General application rules (later withdrawn and replaced by ISO/TS 81346-3:2012, which was later withdrawn) ISO/PAS 11154:2006 Road vehicles – Roof load carriers (later revised in ISO 11154:2023, which does not have the "PAS" abbreviation in its name)

Technical corrigenda When partnering with IEC in their joint technical committee, ISO also sometimes issues "technical corrigenda" (where "corrigenda" is the plural of corrigendum). These are amendments made to existing standards to correct minor technical flaws or ambiguities.

ISO guides These are meta-standards covering "matters related to international standardization". They are named using the format "ISO[/IEC] Guide N:yyyy: Title".

For example: ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004 Standardization and related activities – General vocabulary ISO/IEC Guide 65:1996 General requirements for bodies operating product certification (since revised and reissued as ISO/IEC 17065:2012 Conformity assessment—Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services).ISO, ISO/IEC 17065:2012 Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services , published September 2012, revised 2018, accessed 3 October 2022

Document copyright ISO documents have strict copyright restrictions and ISO charges for most copies. , the typical cost of a copy of an ISO standard is about or more (and electronic copies typically have a single-user licence, so they cannot be shared among groups of people). Some standards by ISO and its official US representative (and, via the US National Committee, the International Electrotechnical Commission) are made freely available.

Standardization process A standard published by ISO/IEC is the last stage of a long process that commonly starts with the proposal of new work within a committee. Some abbreviations used for marking a standard with its status are: PWI – Preliminary Work Item NP or NWIP – New Proposal / New Work Item Proposal (e.g., ISO/IEC NP 23007) AWI – Approved new Work Item (e.g., ISO/IEC AWI 15444-14) WD – Working Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC WD 27032) CD – Committee Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC CD 23000-5) FCD – Final Committee Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC FCD 23000-12) DIS – Draft International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC DIS 14297) FDIS – Final Draft International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC FDIS 27003) PRF – Proof of a new International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC PRF 18018) IS – International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007)

Abbreviations used for amendments are: NP Amd – New Proposal Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 15444-2:2004/NP Amd 3) AWI Amd – Approved new Work Item Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 14492:2001/AWI Amd 4) WD Amd – Working Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO 11092:1993/WD Amd 1) CD Amd / PDAmd – Committee Draft Amendment / Proposed Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/CD Amd 6) FPDAmd / DAM (DAmd) – Final Proposed Draft Amendment / Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003/FPDAmd 1) FDAM (FDAmd) – Final Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/FDAmd 4) PRF Amd – (e.g., ISO 12639:2004/PRF Amd 1) Amd – Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Amd 1:2007)

Other abbreviations are: TR – Technical Report (e.g., ISO/IEC TR 19791:2006) DTR – Draft Technical Report (e.g., ISO/IEC DTR 19791) TS – Technical Specification (e.g., ISO/TS 16949:2009) DTS – Draft Technical Specification (e.g., ISO/DTS 11602-1) PAS – Publicly Available Specification TTA – Technology Trends Assessment (e.g., ISO/TTA 1:1994) IWA – International Workshop Agreements (e.g., IWA 1:2005) Cor – Technical Corrigendum (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Cor 1:2008) Guide – a guidance to technical committees for the preparation of standards

International Standards are developed by ISO technical committees (TC) and subcommittees (SC) by a process with six steps: Stage 1: Proposal stage Stage 2: Preparatory stage Stage 3: Committee stage Stage 4: Enquiry stage Stage 5: Approval stage Stage 6: Publication stage

The TC/SC may set up working groups (WG) of experts for the preparation of working drafts. Subcommittees may have several working groups, which may have several Sub Groups (SG).

+ Stage code Stage Associated document name Abbreviations 00 Preliminary Preliminary work item PWI 10 Proposal New work item proposal 20 Preparatory Working draft or drafts 30 Committee Committee draft or drafts 40 Enquiry Enquiry draft (CDV in IEC) 50 Approval Final draft 60 Publication International Standard 90 Review 95 Withdrawal