What are ANSI standards?

ANSI standards are guidelines for companies which are not enforced by ANSI itself since ANSI isn’t an official governmental operation. Official governmental agencies such as OSHA occasionally adopt ANSI standards into their regulations. That being said, these standards are 100% voluntary and do not come with any sort of legal punishment if they are not followed. However, even without being able to enforce these standards ANSI is such a trusted organization that many companies opt to follow their standards anyway. It has been proven that the standards that they put forth improve efficiency, safety, and reduce hazard risks as well as provide numerous other benefits.

Currently ANSI has more than 10,000 different standards that various companies and organizations have taken up to keep their employees and consumers safe. They are implemented in all sorts of industries that fall under these nine different panels’ jurisdictions:

  • ANSI Homeland Defense and Security Standardization Collaborative (HDSSC)
  • ANSI Nanotechnology Standards Panel (ANSI-NSP)
  • ID Theft Prevention and ID Management Standards Panel (IDSP)
  • Electric Vehicles Standards Panel (EVSP)
  • ANSI Energy Efficiency Standardization Coordination Collaborative (EESCC)
  • ANSI-NAM Network on Chemical Regulation
  • Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC)
  • Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP)
  • ANSI Biofuels Standards Coordination Panel

When these panels discuss new possibilities for standards, they often pull ideas from individual industries and other standard-developing organizations by accrediting them. When ANSI accredits something, they are recognizing a particular action by a company that meets the essentials regarding balance, openness, due process, and consensus. This is the basis of how their standards are created.

Some of the most common standards that everyone recognizes from ANSI are the Z535 standards that reference safety colors, safety signs, symbols, labels, tags, tape, and product safety training used in manuals. Understanding and meeting these ANSI-Z535 standards is an essential aspect to a visual communication system that encourages safety in the workplace. Staying compliant is also important, as OSHA has adopted these standards.

 

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