Any norm, convention, requirement or regulation decided as valid and fundamental in respective field are called standards.
In essence, a standard is an agreed way of doing something. It could be about making a product, managing a process, delivering a service or supplying materials – standards can cover a huge range of activities undertaken by organizations and used by their customers.
A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is any organization whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise producing technical standards that are intended to address the needs of some relatively wide base of affected adopters.
Specification may refer to an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service.
In engineering, manufacturing, and business, it is vital for suppliers, purchasers, and users of materials, products, or services to understand and agree upon all requirements. A specification is a type of a standard which is often referenced by a contract or procurement document. It provides the necessary details about the specific requirements.
Specifications may be written by government agencies, standards organizations (ASTM, ISO, CEN, DoD, etc.), trade associations, corporations, and others.
Some Abbreviations of standards are as follows
1. ISO: International organization for Standards
2. ASTM: American Society for Testing and Materials
3. BSI: British Standard Incorporation
4. ISI: Indian Standards Institution
5. BIS: Bureau of Indian Standard
6. DIN: Deutsches Institution for Normum (German Institute for Standardization)
7. ANSI: American National Standards Institute
more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_technical_standard_organisations
