The Standards Council of Canada (SCC) retained The Conference Board of Canada to undertake a study to examine the impact of standardization on the Canadian economy in order to highlight the economic benefits of standardization in Canada and provide Canada-specific standardization related data.

The study was based on research methodology that was originally used in Germany and the United Kingdom and adapted to the Canadian situation. Studies in these countries concluded that standards have made an important contribution to growth in productivity, and the SCC was interested in verifying the degree to which this might also be true in Canada.