Under the final NAPCS, each product will carry a common title, definition, and product code across all industries that produce it, and the aggregation structure will group products regardless of industry in a manner that reflects how products are used from a demand-side perspective that will support studies of market share, demand for goods and services, import competition, and similar studies (see discussion papers 1 and 2 under the Discussion Paper link on the NAPCS Home Page).

In contrast to the final NAPCS structure, the primary purpose of these provisional and industry-orientated aggregation structures is to facilitate refining product detail and obtaining agreement on the trilateral levels of product detail shown in each list, as provisional targets of comparability in the collection and publication of product data for the industries covered by that list. Moreover, the detailed products displayed in the individual lists are presently being examined to identify many products common to multiple lists and to establish standardized titles and definitions for those products.