Standards are indispensable to manufacturing industry. Not only do they allow interchangeability or interoperability between different manufacturers' products, but they also represent a distillation of knowledge about practical aspects of technology how to make measurements, what tests to use, what dimensions to specify and so on. Each standard is the result of considerable work on the part of a collection of experts in that particular field and is therefore authoritative; notwithstanding which, any standard in a fast-changing area will be subject to revision and amendment as the technology progresses.

This appendix lists a few of the more relevant British and international standards, both of those which have been referenced in the text of this book and some that the author feels to be of particular interest. The catalogs of the various standards bodies, updated yearly, give a full list of the available and current standards and are essential for the library of any development department. Although only BS and IEC publications are mentioned here, for the sake of brevity, there are of course many other standards sources which you may need to consult for a particular application.