This standard practice contains minimum criteria and guidelines for establishing and implementing quality assurance procedures for Standard Manufactured Materials used in highway construction. The purpose of this document is to establish minimum quality control (QC) requirements for Manufacturers and to provide guidelines for acceptance of standard manufactured materials by transportation agencies. Standard Manufactured Materials??Materials used in transportation construction are broadly categorized according to their source and corresponding methods of production. The three principal materials categories are as follows: ? Project produced materials@ ? Fabricated structural materials@ and ? Standard manufactured materials. In order to explain the difference between these materials categories and provide a basic understanding of how quality assurance (QA) is applied to them; each of the three primary material categories is defined below (see Section 3). Although QA procedures should be addressed for each of these material categories@ the scope of this standard practice is the application of quality assurance to standard manufactured materials. Standard manufactured materials are standard items that are produced routinely (i.e.@ not for a specific project) by a Manufacturer. They are generally characterized by one@ or more@ of the following conditions: The materials are normally mass-produced under highly controlled and largely automated manufacturing conditions. The material properties are stable and have no potential for alteration under proper transportation from the Manufacturer to the project site. The materials arrive at the project site in a solid@ finished state and require only installation. Relevant Items??This standard practice addresses those items used in transportation construction which meet the above description of standard manufactured materials. Some examples of standard manufactured materials used in transportation construction are presented in Table 1 below. The list of items in Table 1 is not all-inclusive@ but is intended to show examples of typical items within each of the three principal materials categories.