ISO 11648-1:2002 establishes the general principles for the application and statistical treatment of the sampling of bulk materials. It also provides general guidance and examples for estimating necessary variances and checking precision and bias when the average value of a quality characteristic is investigated. Furthermore, this part of ISO 11648-1:2002 gives information relating to the statistical analyses of serial data, by the use of variograms and correlograms.

ISO 11648-1:2002 also defines the basic terms with definitions for the sampling of bulk materials. These terms are necessary for providing a better understanding of sampling techniques as well as making it easier to fulfil requirements.