Some twenty-six articles have been published in the“Reviews of Standards and Specifications”since the advent of this section nearly seven years ago. The time is here to review the subject and to chart a possible course for the future. This review is an introduction to a proposed ASQC publication which will present these articles under a single cover in order to make them available to a wider audience. Because there is virtually no limit on what might be brought together under the general subject matter heading if selections from other journals or periodicals were included in the publication, a decision was made to use only the articles which have been published in this section.