What does ANSI stand for?

ANSI stands for The American National Standards Institute. This entity, created in October of 1918, has a 501(c)3 legal status allowing it to have the status of a private not-for-profit organization. ANSI is made up of voluntary members as either individuals (30 million professionals today) or large entities like governmental agencies, companies, academic and international groups, and organizations (270,000 today). The standards that ANSI assists in developing are related to processes, products, personnel, and systems in the United States with the aim to enhance the quality, safety, and competitiveness of the U.S. businesses.

ANSI Standards

Individuals and companies that require certain standards have representatives involved with ANSI. These representatives eventually may become accredited by ANSI to develop standards for their industry. By accrediting standards from a wide variety of occupations, ANSI is able to ensure that there is consistency across the board in definitions, terms, and the way products are tested. However, it must be noted that ANSI is only voluntary, they cannot enforce the standards that they create. OSHA, as one of the official governmental agencies, is able to adopt ANSI’s standards and make them into regulations required by law.

Oftentimes, ANSI standards coincide purposefully with international standards to allow American products to be used around the globe. By continuing this trend of standardization and consistency, employees everywhere have the opportunity to be safer from the very beginning rather than having to memorize multiple ways that things could be done and then subsequently getting them wrong.

ANSI simply provides suggestions that are beneficial to the health and safety of professionals. With a vast amount of input that ANSI pulls in from all different kinds of industries, the non-profit is committed to creating standards that can be applied to a variety of buisnesses and assist everyone in being safe while performing day to day tasks.