A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of

technical standard A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, ...

. There are different types of technical or engineering specifications (specs), and the term is used differently in different technical contexts. They often refer to particular documents, and/or particular information within them. The word ''specification'' is broadly defined as "to state explicitly or in detail" or "to be specific". A requirement specification is a documented requirement, or set of documented requirements, to be satisfied by a given material, design, product, service, etc. It is a common early part of engineering design and

product development In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) covers the complete process of bringing a new product to market, renewing an existing product or introducing a product in a new market. A central aspect of NPD is product design, along w ...

processes in many fields. A functional specification is a kind of requirement specification, and may show functional block diagrams. A design or product specification describes the features of the ''solutions'' for the Requirement Specification, referring to either a designed solution or final produced solution. It is often used to guide fabrication/production. Sometimes the term ''specification'' is here used in connection with a data sheet (or ''spec sheet''), which may be confusing. A data sheet describes the technical characteristics of an item or product, often published by a manufacturer to help people choose or use the products. A data sheet is not a technical specification in the sense of informing how to produce. An "in-service" or "maintained as" specification, specifies the conditions of a system or object after years of operation, including the effects of wear and maintenance (configuration changes). Specifications are a type of technical standard that may be developed by any of various kinds of organizations, in both the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

and

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

sectors. Example organization types include a

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...

, a

consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources ...

(a small group of corporations), a

trade association A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. An industry trade association partic ...

(an industry-wide group of corporations), a national government (including its different public entities, regulatory agencies, and national laboratories and institutes), a

professional association A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional society) usually seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals and organisations engaged in that profession, and t ...

(society), a purpose-made

standards organization A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is an organization whose primary function is developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpr ...

such as ISO, or vendor-neutral developed generic requirements. It is common for one organization to ''refer to'' (''reference'', ''call out'', ''cite'') the standards of another. Voluntary standards may become mandatory if adopted by a government or business contract.

Use

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...

, and

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separ ...

, it is vital for

suppliers In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, activ ...

, purchasers, and users of materials, products, or services to understand and agree upon all requirements. A specification may refer to a standard which is often referenced by a

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tr ...

or procurement document, or an otherwise agreed upon set of requirements (though still often used in the singular). In any case, it provides the necessary details about the specific requirements. Standards for specifications may be provided by government agencies, standards organizations (

SAE SAE or Sae may refer to: Science and technology : * Selective area epitaxy, local growth of epitaxial layer through a patterned dielectric mask deposited on a semiconductor substrate * Serious adverse event, in a clinical trial * Simultaneous Aut ...

AWS Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide d ...

NIST The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

ASTM ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, an ...

, ISO /

IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...

, CEN /

CENELEC CENELEC (french: Comité Européen de Normalisation Électrotechnique; en, European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) is responsible for European standardization in the area of electrical engineering. Together with ETSI (telecommun ...

, DoD, etc.), trade associations,

corporations A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

, and others. A memorandum published by William J. Perry, U.S. Defense Secretary, on 29 June 1994 announced that a move to "greater use of performance and commercial specifications and standards" was to be introduced, which Perry saw as "one of the most important actions that he Department of Defenseshould take" at that time. The following

British standards British Standards (BS) are the standards produced by the BSI Group which is incorporated under a royal charter and which is formally designated as the national standards body (NSB) for the UK. The BSI Group produces British Standards under the ...

apply to specifications: *BS 7373-1:2001 Guide to the preparation of specifications *BS 7373-2:2001 Product specifications. Guide to identifying criteria for a product specification and to declaring product conformity *BS 7373-3:2005, Product specifications. Guide to identifying criteria for specifying a service offering A design/product specification does not necessarily prove a product to be correct or useful in every context. An item might be verified to comply with a specification or stamped with a specification number: this does not, by itself, indicate that the item is fit for other, non-validated uses. The people who use the item (

engineers Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the li ...

trade unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

, etc.) or specify the item (

building codes A building code (also building control or building regulations) is a set of rules that specify the standards for constructed objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permiss ...

, government, industry, etc.) have the responsibility to consider the choice of available specifications, specify the correct one, enforce compliance, and use the item correctly. Validation of suitability is necessary. Public sector procurement rules in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

and United Kingdom require

non-discriminatory Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of Racial discrimination, r ...

technical specifications to be used to identify the purchasing organisation's requirements. The rules relating to public works contracts initially prohibited "technical specifications having a discriminatory effect" from 1971; this principle was extended to public supply contracts by the then European Communities' Directive 77/62/EEC coordinating procedures for the award of public supply contracts, adopted in 1976. Some organisations provide guidance on specification-writing for their staff and partners.Suffolk County Council
General Guide to Writing Specifications
Version 4, September 2017, accessed September 2022 In addition to identifying the specific attributes required of the goods or services being purchased, specifications in the public sector may also make reference to the organisation's current corporate objectives or priorities.

Guidance and content

Sometimes a guide or a

standard operating procedure A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organization to help workers carry out routine operations. SOPs aim to achieve efficiency, quality output, and uniformity of performance, while reducing misc ...

is available to help write and format a good specification. A specification might include: * Descriptive title, number,

identifier An identifier is a name that identifies (that is, labels the identity of) either a unique object or a unique ''class'' of objects, where the "object" or class may be an idea, physical countable object (or class thereof), or physical noncountable ...

, etc. of the specification * Date of last effective revision and revision designation * A

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from ot ...

to indicate the document

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

ownership Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

and origin *

Table of Contents A table of contents, usually headed simply Contents and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list, usually found on a page before the start of a written work, of its chapter or section titles or brief descriptions with their commencing page numbe ...

(TOC), if the document is long * Person, office, or agency responsible for questions on the specification, updates, and deviations. * The significance, scope or importance of the specification and its intended use. *

Terminology Terminology is a group of specialized words and respective meanings in a particular field, and also the study of such terms and their use; the latter meaning is also known as terminology science. A ''term'' is a word, compound word, or multi-wo ...

definitions A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definiti ...

and abbreviations to clarify the meanings of the specification *

Test method A test method is a method for a test in science or engineering, such as a physical test, chemical test, or statistical test. It is a definitive procedure that produces a test result. In order to ensure accurate and relevant test results, a test m ...

s for measuring all specified characteristics * Material requirements: physical, mechanical, electrical, chemical, etc. Targets and

tolerances Engineering tolerance is the permissible limit or limits of variation in: # a physical dimension; # a measured value or physical property of a material, manufactured object, system, or service; # other measured values (such as temperature, hum ...

. *

Acceptance testing In engineering and its various subdisciplines, acceptance testing is a test conducted to determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met. It may involve chemical tests, physical tests, or performance tests. In systems ...

, including performance testing requirements. Targets and

. * Drawings,

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

s, or

technical illustration Technical Illustration is illustration meant to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations can be components of technical drawings or diagrams. Technical illustrations in general aim "to generate expressive ...

s * Workmanship *

Certification Certification is the provision by an independent body of written assurance (a certificate) that the product, service or system in question meets specific requirements. It is the formal attestation or confirmation of certain characteristics of a ...

s required. *

Safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly di ...

considerations and requirements *

Security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

considerations and requirements (where appropriate: e.g. for products and services to be provided to government or military agencies, information technology firms, etc.) *

Environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scal ...

considerations and requirements *

Quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach place ...

requirements,

acceptance sampling Acceptance sampling uses statistical sampling to determine whether to accept or reject a production lot of material. It has been a common quality control technique used in industry. It is usually done as products leave the factory, or in some ca ...

, inspections, acceptance criteria; or, where a quality management system is operating,

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

requirements set forth to regulate business processes involved in the delivery of the product/service which is in the scope of the specification. * Person, office, or agency responsible for enforcement of the specification (which could include the arrangement and execution of audits for verifying compliance with the requirements set forth in the specification). * Completion and delivery conditions (often referring to standardized

INCOTERMS The Incoterms or International Commercial Terms are a series of pre-defined commercial terms published by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) relating to international commercial law. Incoterms define the responsiblities of exporters a ...

). * Provisions for rejection, reinspection, rehearing,

corrective measures ''Corrective Measures'' is a 2022 American superhero film written, produced and directed by Sean O'Reilly and starring Bruce Willis and Michael Rooker. It is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Grant Chastain. It is also O'Reilly's de ...

References Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''name'' ...

and

citation A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose o ...

s for which any instructions in the content maybe required to fulfill the

traceability Traceability is the capability to trace something. In some cases, it is interpreted as the ability to verify the history, location, or application of an item by means of documented recorded identification. Other common definitions include the capab ...

and clarity of the document

ISO 690 ISO 690 is an ISO standard governing bibliographic references in different kinds of documents, including electronic documents. This international standard specifies the bibliographic elements that need to be included in references to published ...

* Signatures of approval, if necessary;

Title 21 CFR Part 11 Title 21 CFR Part 11 is the part of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations that establishes the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations on electronic records and electronic signatures (ERES). Part 11, as it is commonly cal ...

sometimes specific procedures apply to sign-off / buy-off events. * Change record to summarize the chronological development, revision and completion if the document is to be circulated internally * Annexes and Appendices that are expand details, add clarification, or offer options.

Construction specifications

Construction specifications in North America

Specifications in North America form part of the contract documents that accompany and govern the construction of building and infrastructure projects. Specifications describe the quality and performance of building materials, using code citations and published standards, whereas the drawings or

building information model Building information modeling (BIM) is a process supported by various tools, technologies and contracts involving the generation and management of digital representations of physical and functional characteristics of places. Building informatio ...

(BIM) illustrates quantity and location of materials. The guiding master document of names and numbers is the latest edition of MasterFormat. This is a consensus document that is jointly sponsored by two professional organizations:

Construction Specifications Canada Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

and Construction Specifications Institute based in the United States and updated every two years. While there is a tendency to believe that "specifications overrule drawings" in the event of discrepancies between the text document and the drawings, the actual intent must be made explicit in the contract between the Owner and the Contractor. The standard AIA (American Institute of Architects) and EJCDC (Engineering Joint Contract Documents Committee) states that the drawings and specifications are complementary, together providing the information required for a complete facility. Many public agencies, such as the Naval Facilities Command (NAVFAC) state that the specifications overrule the drawings. This is based on the idea that words are easier for a jury (or mediator) to interpret than drawings in case of a dispute. The standard listing of construction specifications falls into

50 Divisions 50 Divisions refers to the 50 divisions of construction information, as defined by the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI)'s MasterFormat beginning in 2004. Before 2004, MasterFormat consisted of 16 Divisions. MasterFormat has continued ...

, or broad categories of work types and work results involved in construction. The divisions are subdivided into sections, each one addressing a specific material type (concrete) or a work product (steel door) of the construction work. A specific material may be covered in several locations, depending on the work result: stainless steel (for example) can be covered as a sheet material used in flashing and sheet Metal in division 07; it can be part of a finished product, such as a handrail, covered in division 05; or it can be a component of building hardware, covered in division 08. The original listing of specification divisions was based on the time sequence of construction, working from exterior to interior, and this logic is still somewhat followed as new materials and systems make their way into the construction process. Each section is subdivided into three distinct parts: "general", "products" and "execution". The MasterFormat and section format system can be successfully applied to residential, commercial, civil, and industrial construction. Although many Architects find the rather voluminous commercial style of specifications too lengthy for most residential projects and therefore either produce more abbreviated specifications of their own or use ArCHspec (which was specifically created for residential projects). Master specification systems are available from multiple vendors such as Arcom, Visispec, BSD, and Spectext. These systems were created to standardize language across the United States and are usually subscription based. Specifications can be either "performance-based", whereby the specifier restricts the text to stating the performance that must be achieved by the completed work, "prescriptive" where the specifier states the specific criteria such as fabrication standards applicable to the item, or "proprietary", whereby the specifier indicates specific products, vendors and even contractors that are acceptable for each workscope. In addition, specifications can be "closed" with a specific list of products, or "open" allowing for substitutions made by the Contractor. Most construction specifications are a combination of performance-based and proprietary types, naming acceptable manufacturers and products while also specifying certain standards and design criteria that must be met. While North American specifications are usually restricted to broad descriptions of the work,

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an ones and Civil work can include actual work quantities, including such things as

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an op ...

drywall Drywall (also called plasterboard, dry lining, wallboard, sheet rock, gypsum board, buster board, custard board, and gypsum panel) is a panel made of calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum), with or without additives, typically extruded between thic ...

to be built in square meters, like a

bill of materials A bill of materials or product structure (sometimes bill of material, BOM or associated list) is a list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, parts, and the quantities of each needed to manufacture an end ...

. This type of specification is a collaborative effort between a specwriter and a quantity surveyor. This approach is unusual in North America, where each bidder performs a quantity survey on the basis of both drawings and specifications. In many countries on the European continent, content that might be described as "specifications" in the United States are covered under the building code or municipal code. Civil and infrastructure work in the United States often includes a quantity breakdown of the work to be performed as well. Although specifications are usually issued by the

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

's office, specification writing itself is undertaken by the architect and the various

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...

s or by specialist specification writers. Specification writing is often a distinct professional trade, with professional certifications such as "Certified Construction Specifier" (CCS) available through the Construction Specifications Institute and the Registered Specification Writer (RSW) through Construction Specifications Canada. Specification writers are either

employees Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any ot ...

of or sub-contractors to architects, engineers, or construction management companies. Specification writers frequently meet with manufacturers of

building materials Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man- ...

who seek to have their products specified on upcoming construction projects so that contractors can include their products in the estimates leading to their proposals. In February 2015, ArCHspec went live, from ArCH (Architects Creating Homes), a nationwide American professional society of Architects whose purpose is to improve residential architecture. ArCHspec was created specifically for use by Licensed Architects while designing SFR (Single Family Residential) architectural projects. Unlike the more commercial CSI (50+ division commercial specifications), ArCHspec utilizes the more recognizable 16 traditional Divisions, plus a Division 0 (Scope & Bid Forms) and Division 17 (low voltage). Many architects, up to this point, did not provide specifications for residential designs, which is one of the reasons ArCHspec was created: to fill a void in the industry with more compact specifications for residential use. Shorter form specifications documents suitable for residential use are also available through Arcom, and follow the 50 division format, which was adopted in both the United States and Canada starting in 2004. The 16 division format is no longer considered standard, and is not supported by either CSI or CSC, or any of the subscription master specification services, data repositories, product lead systems, and the bulk of governmental agencies. The United States'

Federal Acquisition Regulation The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) is the principal set of rules regarding Government procurement in the United States,. and is codified at Chapter 1 of Title 48 of the Code of Federal Regulations, . It covers many of the contracts issued b ...

governing

procurement Procurement is the method of discovering and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. When a government agency buys goods or s ...

for the

federal government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government ( federalism). In a federation, the self-gover ...

and its agencies stipulates that a copy of the drawings and specifications must be kept available on a construction site.

Construction specifications in Egypt

Specifications in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

form part of contract documents. The Housing and Building National Research Center
HBRC
is responsible for developing construction specifications and codes. The HBRC has published more than 15 books which cover building activities like earthworks, plastering, etc.

Construction specifications in the UK

Specifications in the UK are part of the contract documents that accompany and govern the construction of a building. They are prepared by construction professionals such as

architects An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

architectural technologists The architectural technologist, also known as a building technologist, provides technical building design services and is trained in architectural technology, building technical design and construction. Architectural technologists apply the scienc ...

structural engineer Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economi ...

landscape architect A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manage ...

s and building services engineers. They are created from previous project specifications, in-house documents or master specifications such as the

National Building Specification NBS (National Building Specification) is a UK-based business providing construction specification information used by architects, engineers and other building professionals to describe the materials, standards and workmanship of a construction pro ...

(NBS). The National Building Specification is owned by the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

(RIBA) through their commercial group RIBA Enterprises (RIBAe). NBS master specifications provide content that is broad and comprehensive, and delivered using software functionality that enables specifiers to customize the content to suit the needs of the project and to keep up to date. UK project specification types fall into two main categories prescriptive and performance. Prescriptive specifications define the requirements using generic or proprietary descriptions of what is required, whereas performance specifications focus on the outcomes rather than the characteristics of the components. Specifications are an integral part of

Building Information Modeling Building information modeling (BIM) is a process supported by various tools, technologies and contracts involving the generation and management of digital representations of physical and functional characteristics of places. Building informatio ...

and cover the non-geometric requirements.

Food and drug specifications

Pharmaceutical products can usually be tested and qualified by various

pharmacopoeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (from the obsolete typography ''pharmacopœia'', meaning "drug-making"), in its modern technical sense, is a book containing directions for the identification of compound medicines, and published by ...

s. Current existing pharmaceutical standards include: *

British Pharmacopoeia The ''British Pharmacopoeia'' (''BP'') is the national pharmacopoeia of the United Kingdom. It is an annually published collection of quality standards for medicinal substances in the UK, which is used by individuals and organisations involv ...

European Pharmacopoeia The ''European Pharmacopoeia'' (''Pharmacopoeia Europaea'', ''Ph. Eur.'') is a major regional pharmacopoeia which provides common quality standards throughout the pharmaceutical industry in Europe to control the quality of medicines, and the ...

* Japanese Pharmacopoeia * The International Pharmacopoeia *

United States Pharmacopeia The ''United States Pharmacopeia'' (''USP'') is a pharmacopeia (compendium of drug information) for the United States published annually by the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (usually also called the USP), a nonprofit organization that ...

If any pharmaceutical product is not covered by the above

standards Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object t ...

, it can be evaluated by the additional source of pharmacopoeias from other nations, from industrial specifications, or from a standardized formulary such as *

British National Formulary for Children ''BNF for Children'' (''BNFC'') is the standard UK paediatric reference for prescribing and pharmacology. It contains a wide range of information and advice on prescribing for children - from newborn to adolescence. The entries are classified b ...

British National Formulary The ''British National Formulary'' (BNF) is a United Kingdom (UK) pharmaceutical reference book that contains a wide spectrum of information and advice on prescribing and pharmacology, along with specific facts and details about many medici ...

National Formulary A formulary is a list of pharmaceutical drugs, often decided upon by a group of people, for various reasons such as insurance coverage or use at a medical facility. Traditionally, a formulary contained a collection of formulas for the compounding ...

A similar approach is adopted by the food manufacturing, of which

Codex Alimentarius The Codex Alimentarius () is a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice, guidelines, and other recommendations published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations relating to food, food productio ...

ranks the highest standards, followed by regional and national standards. The coverage of food and drug

by ISO is currently less fruitful and not yet put forward as an urgent agenda due to the tight restrictions of regional or national constitution. Specifications and other standards can be externally imposed as discussed above, but also internal manufacturing and quality specifications. These exist not only for the

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is in ...

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and ...

product but also for the processing

machinery A machine is a physical system using power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecul ...

, quality processes,

packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a c ...

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

( cold chain), etc. and are exemplified by ISO 14134 and ISO 15609. The converse of explicit statement of specifications is a process for dealing with observations that are out-of-specification. The United States Food and Drug Administration has published a non-binding recommendation that addresses just this point. At the present time, much of the information and regulations concerning food and food products remain in a form which makes it difficult to apply automated information processing, storage and transmission methods and techniques. Data systems that can process, store and transfer information about food and food products need formal specifications for the representations of data about food and food products in order to operate effectively and efficiently. Development of formal specifications for food and drug data with the necessary and sufficient clarity and precision for use specifically by digital computing systems have begun to emerge from some government agencies and standards organizations: the United States Food and Drug Administration has published specifications for a "Structured Product Label" which drug manufacturers must by mandate use to submit electronically the information on a drug label. Recently, the ISO has made some progress in the area of food and drug

and formal specifications for data about regulated substances through the publication of ISO 11238.

Information technology

Specification need

In many contexts, particularly software, specifications are needed to avoid errors due to lack of compatibility, for instance, in interoperability issues. For instance, when two applications share Unicode data, but use different normal forms or use them incorrectly, in an incompatible way or without sharing a minimum set of interoperability specification, errors and data loss can result. For example, Mac OS X has many components that prefer or require only decomposed characters (thus decomposed-only Unicode encoded with UTF-8 is also known as "UTF8-MAC"). In one specific instance, the combination of OS X errors handling composed characters, and the

samba Samba (), also known as samba urbano carioca (''urban Carioca samba'') or simply samba carioca (''Carioca samba''), is a Brazilian music genre that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century. Havi ...

file- and printer-sharing software (which replaces decomposed letters with composed ones when copying file names), has led to confusing and data-destroying interoperability problems.Forums.macosxhints.com
/ref> Applications may avoid such errors by preserving input code points, and normalizing them to only the application's preferred normal form for internal use. Such errors may also be avoided with algorithms normalizing both strings before any binary comparison. However errors due to file name encoding incompatibilities have always existed, due to a lack of minimum set of common specification between software hoped to be inter-operable between various file system drivers, operating systems, network protocols, and thousands of software packages.

Formal specification

A formal specification is a

mathematical Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

description of

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

or hardware that may be used to develop an

implementation Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy. Industry-specific definitions Computer science In computer science, an implementation is a real ...

. It describes ''what'' the system should do, not (necessarily) ''how'' the system should do it. Given such a specification, it is possible to use

formal verification In the context of hardware and software systems, formal verification is the act of proving or disproving the correctness of intended algorithms underlying a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property, using formal met ...

techniques to demonstrate that a candidate system design is correct with respect to that specification. This has the advantage that incorrect candidate system designs can be revised before a major investment has been made in actually implementing the design. An alternative approach is to use provably correct refinement steps to transform a specification into a design, and ultimately into an actual implementation, that is correct by construction.

Architectural specification

In (hardware, software, or enterprise) systems development, an architectural specification is the set of

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance and use. As a form of knowledge manageme ...

that describes the

structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such a ...

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as we ...

, and more views of that

system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...

Program specification

A program specification is the definition of what a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and oth ...

is expected to do. It can be ''informal'', in which case it can be considered as a user manual from a developer point of view, or '' formal'', in which case it has a definite meaning defined in

or programmatic terms. In practice, many successful specifications are written to understand and fine-tune applications that were already well-developed, although

safety-critical A safety-critical system (SCS) or life-critical system is a system whose failure or malfunction may result in one (or more) of the following outcomes: * death or serious injury to people * loss or severe damage to equipment/property * environme ...

software systems A software system is a system of intercommunicating components based on software forming part of a computer system (a combination of hardware and software). It "consists of a number of separate programs, configuration files, which are used to ...

are often carefully specified prior to application development. Specifications are most important for external interfaces that must remain stable.

Functional specification

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invo ...

, a functional specification (also, functional spec or specs or functional specifications document (FSD)) is the set of

that describes the behavior of a computer program or larger

software system A software system is a system of intercommunicating components based on software forming part of a computer system (a combination of hardware and software). It "consists of a number of separate programs, configuration files, which are used to se ...

. The documentation typically describes various inputs that can be provided to the

system and how the

responds to those inputs.

Web service specification

Web services specifications are often under the umbrella of a

quality management system A quality management system (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction (ISO 9001:2015). I ...

Document specification

These types of documents define how a specific document should be written, which may include, but is not limited to, the systems of a document naming, version, layout, referencing, structuring, appearance, language, copyright, hierarchy or format, etc. Very often, this kind of specifications is complemented by a designated template.

Use