The Spanish Association for Standardisation and Certification was founded in 1986, coinciding with Spain's accession to the European Economic Community. The opening of borders that this represented was at once a huge opportunity and a tremendous challenge for Spanish products.
Prior to this date, standardisation was the responsibility of the Spanish Institute of Rationalisation and Standardisation (IRANOR), a public company created in 1945 under the Spanish National Research Council. Spain's economic and public administration sectors agreed the country needed a similar organisation to those already existing in other European countries. Thus, all standardisation and certification activities moved to the private initiative with the setting up of a private, non-profit, independent organisation. The objective was to spread the culture of quality throughout the Spanish productive fabric in order to improve its competitiveness.