[2] In pharmaceutical and biotechnology areas, ASTM International standard E2500[3] specifies SMEs for various functions in project and process management.
"Subject Matter Experts are defined as those individuals with specific expertise and responsibility in a particular area or field (for example, quality unit, engineering, automation, development, operations).
Subject Matter Experts should take the lead role in the verification of manufacturing systems as appropriate within their area of expertise and responsibility."
[5] A lawyer in an administrative agency may be designated an SME if they specialize in a particular field of law, such as tort, intellectual property rights, etc.
[6] In electronic discovery environments, the term "SME" labels professionals with expertise using computer-assisted reviewing technology and technology-assisted review (TAR) to perform searches designed to produce precisely refined results that identify groups of data as potentially responsive or nonresponsive to relevant issues.
The term "SME" also has a broader definition in engineering and high tech as one who has the greatest expertise in a technical topic.
According to Six Sigma, a SME "exhibits the highest level of expertise in performing a specialized job, task, or skill of broad definition.
In most cases, SMEs collect and/or create all of the engineering-approved documentation assets required for a technical writer during a project's research and/or development phase.
In larger organizations, SMEs are often assigned limited engineering roles and the focus of their work is technical writing support.
As a result, many web development and software organizations invented their own simpler, non-standardized, peer-review processes as start-ups.
The few that do, have adopted standardized engineering processes, which require a SME review, as a measure to protect their customers and assets from inaccurate documentation.