ISO’s principal activity is to develop technical standards required by the market. Member bodies are standards organizations from 162 countries. Of these, 119 member bodies are entitled to participate and exercise full voting rights within ISO.
The technical work is carried out via technical committees (TCs) and sub-committees (SCs) with working groups (WG) to cover certain areas of work. Experts from the industrial, technical and business sectors, which have asked for the standards and which will put them into use, develop and finalize the technical standards. The most active ISO countries in terms of holding secretariats are DIN Germany (131 secretariats) and ANSI USA (110 secretariats). In 2016, ISO has produced 21478 international standards.
ISO publications encompasses:
- ISO Standards
- ISO/TS Technical Specifications
- ISO/TR Technical Reports
- ISO/PAS Publicly Available Specifications
- IWA International Workshop Agreements
- ISO Guides