SSPC: The Society for Protective Coatings and NACE International (The merged organization is known at the Association for Materials Protection and Performance, or AMPP) has volunteer technical committees made up of subject matter experts that develop consensus standards that are drafted, balloted, approved, and published. Once published, these industry standards can be referenced in a coating specification and are invoked by contract once the bidding process is completed and the work is initiated by a painting contractor.
Several of these standards, for example, the SSPC/NACE surface cleanliness standards for abrasive blast cleaning contain both direct and indirect (or referenced) requirements. While direct requirements are reasonably well understood by project stakeholders, the indirect or referenced requirements may not be but are nonetheless contractual requirements that must be addressed and are part of the QA and QC inspection requirements for the job. Test your knowledge of these direct and indirect requirements by challenging each of the questions on the quiz above.