Specifications are a fruitful source of problems. Customer specifications in particular are not always fully understood by the supplier. As a result, one of the following two situations is likely to arise: the detail requirements will have been ignored by the supplier, with the eventual result that costly "quality" problems arise; and changes may be made in the specifications, thus producing the improvement that should have been there in the first instance. If a specification has been in use for some time and has not caused any problems in use or understanding, it is probably of a good standard of quality. Another important point that should be borne in mind when preparing draft specifications is that they are often given a preliminary circulation to persons both inside and outside the organizations. The range of languages within the European Economic Community, the problems of translation and the ambiguity of many of the technical/legal words and phrases used, all raise many problems.