ISO/TR 12888:2011 describes the measurement process where the characteristic(s) being measured is a continuous variable. Measurement processes where the characteristic(s) of interest is an attribute (i.e. pass/fail) are not treated in this document.

ISO/TR 12888:2011 provides examples of simple measurement systems and gives usable results as used in industry where there are two major factors contributing to the variation of the measurement results, such as variation between operators or appraisers and within operators or appraisers.