NMIJ is an organization in charge of national measurement standards and is responsible for providing standards for measuring instruments which are required to be traceable to national standards. The standards provision plan presented here has been discussed and proposed by the Special Committee for Intellectual Infrastructure Improvement. The plan suggests what standards should be developed and provided in the future. For example, 293 physical standards and 303 reference materials are scheduled to be developed by 2010 according to the 2003 revised version of the plan. NMIJ is steadily working towards the realization of this plan.

The National measurement standards that NMIJ supplies are sequentially accredited by sub-programs authorized by ASNITE-NMI of the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation in order to keep in step with mutual recognition among national metrology institutes in the world. ISO/IEC 17025:1999 and ISO/IEC Guide 34:1996, which apply only to reference materials, are a few examples of the sub-programs.