Updated Tile Council handbook reflects real-world issues

By definition, a secretariat is, "an administrative unit responsible for maintaining records and other secretarial duties; especially for international organizations." In many cases it's just administrative personnel with no hands on expertise in their organization's field. But that is certainly not the case at TCNA. The people there have expertise in ceramic tile installation, manufacturing, testing, and other areas related to ceramics, engineering, and materials, etc. This allows the TCNA to act both as an administrative body and as a technical resource, although, due to the sheer volume of inquiries and because of the large number of manufacturers represented, product-specific technical queries are often forwarded to a manufacturer.

The TCNA's roll includes publishing the TCA Handbook and the ANSI standards. The specific ANSI standards over which TCNA is secretariat are: A108 - American National Standard Specifications for Installation of Ceramic Tile and A137.1 -American National Standard Specifications for Ceramic Tile (in progress). The responsibility for getting these documents published means that TCNA coordinates submissions and acts as host for the consensus body which reviews the new material and updates the old.