ISO is the International Standard Organization. It is essentially a federation of national standards bodies from around 150 different countries.

These include the following cross section, amongst many others: Argentina (IRAM) Australia (SAI) Austria (ON) Brazil (ABNT) Canada (SCC) China (SACS) Colombia (ICONTEC) Costa Rica (INTECO) Denmark (DS) France (AFNOR) Germany (DIN) India (BIS) Italy (UNI) Netherlands (NEN) New Zealand (SNZ) Nigeria (SON) Norway (NSF) Pakistan (PSQCA) Saudi Arabia (SASO) South Africa (SABS) Switzerland (SNV) USA (ANSI) United Arab Emirates (SSUAE) United Kingdom (BSI)

Within ISO there are constantly new standards and upgrades being worked upon. Much of this effort is extended by working groups, of which it has in excess of 2,000.

Established in 1947, ISO is a non-government organization, with a mission broadly to promote the development of standardization with the objective of facilitating international trade. ISO standards are of course prefixed with 'ISO' (eg: ISO 9000).

BSI is the British Standards Institution. This is the oldest standards body in the world. It stems form a meeting of various industrial institutes in 1901 which created a long running committee.

The committee became the British Engineering Standards Association in 1929 which had its objectives defined by Royal charter. In 1930, thise Association formally became the British Standards Institution.

It alone currently has over 20,00 standards and has operations in over 100 countries. The prefix for its standards is BS (eg: BS7799).

The ISO Standards Bookshop is an official distributor of international standards and related material.