The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has served as administrator and coordinator of the United States private sector voluntary standardization system for more than 90 years. Founded in 1918 the Institute remains a private, nonprofit membership organization supported by a diverse constituency of private and public sector organizations. The goal of ANSI is the improvement of the global competitiveness for U.S. businesses and promotes voluntary, national standards, such as electronic data interchange. In addition, ANSI is actively engaged in accrediting programs that assess conformance to standards – including globally-recognized cross-sector programs such as the ISO 9000 (quality) and ISO 14000 (environmental) management systems.
Source: www.ansi.org