BSI Group
Founded in 1901, The British Standards Institution was the brainchild of a Victorian engineer who formed a committee to standardise the sizes and types of steel section used in construction to make British industry more competitive.(1)
BSI Group today operates globally through four business units: BSI British Standards, BSI Management Systems, BSI Product Services and BSI Entropy. In the UK, BSI Group owns the well-recognised product mark, the Kitemark®, which is used by BSI Product Services to certify products and services against certain standards that have a Kitemark® scheme set up around them.
Structure
BSI Group
BSI provides third-party services that allow businesses to improve their operations and products, and provide an indication of quality to consumers. (2) BSI is a non-profit distributing organization, which means that any profits are reinvested into the services it provides.
Standards are codes of best practice that improve safety, efficiency, interoperability and facilitate trade. For example, the regulation of the physical characteristics and format of credit cards was established by standard number BS EN ISO/IEC 7810:1996. (3)
BSI British Standards is the UK's National Standards Body (NSB.) It's role is to represents UK economic and social interests across all of the European and international standards organisations and through the development of business information solutions for British organisations of all sizes and sectors. British Standards works with manufacturing and service industries, businesses, governments and consumers to facilitate the production of British, European and international standards.
BSI Product Services
This division of BSI Group is responsible for the laboratory tests on industrial and consumer products. The two certification forms are:
- CE Marking Any product that comes under a European Directive and is to be placed on the market in the EU, is legally required to bear CE marking. BSI Product Services tests and certifies manufactured goods according to its applicable EU Directive. (4)
- The Kitemark symbol has been in use in Britain since 1903 and is recognized by 80% of the adult British population today. The symbol indicates the consumer product has met quality and safety specifications above what is legally required. Recently Kitemark certification was expanded to the service sector market for the automotive repair industry, electricians, and window installers.(5) (11)
Entropy provides software and web based management systems to companies in varying industries and sizes.
Is responsible for assessment and certification (or registration) of organisations which comply with the requirements of Management Systems Standards, the best known of which is ISO 9001 for quality. It registers 60,000 sites in 110 countries.
Areas of Concentration
BSI Group publishes standards and offers practical certification in every major industry and discipline. The following are primary areas of expertise:
- Aerospace
- Agriculture
- Automotive
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Environmental Management
- Food Safety
- Health Care and Medical Devices
- Information Security
- Nanotechnology
- Occupational Health and Safety
- Transportation and Logistics
History
- Sir John Wolfe-Barry - the man who designed London’s Tower Bridge - asked the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers to form a committee to consider standardizing iron and steel sections on 22 January 1901.
- Subsequently, on 26 April 1901, the first meeting of the Engineering Standards Committee took place. The committee succeeded in cutting the production of different tram rails from 75 down to five. This saved the industry about £1 million a year and standardization was underway.
- In 1903 the need to indicate to buyers that goods were 'up to standard' led to the creation and registration of the British Standard Mark - to become known later as the Kitemark®. It was first registered as a trade mark for tramway rails and the number of gauges of tramway rails was reduced from 75 to 5.
- When World War II broke out, ordinary standards work was stopped and efforts were concentrated on producing 'war emergency standards', with the British Government officially recognizing BSI as the sole organization for issuing national standards in 1942. Between 1939 and 1945 over 400 war emergency standards were produced
In 1946, in the aftermath of the Second World War, BSI was a founder member of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), and in 1964 was a founder member of the European equivalent, CEN, and its electro-technical sister organisation CENELEC.
- By the late 1950s and 1960s the market place was flooded with consumer goods, many of dubious quality. As a result, 1953 saw the Kitemark® applied to domestic furniture, pressure cookers and motorcycle helmets to help consumers know whether goods were well produced. Standards were also published for subjects such as checking air pollution, nuclear energy, safety colours for use in industry, schools and office furniture.
- Recent emphasis on environmental stewardship lead to ISO 14001, the internationally recognised standard for Environmental Management Systems (EMS) providing a framework for the development of environmental performance control for all types of businesses and organizations. ISO 14001 has been adopted by 111,000 organizations in 138 countries, demonstrating an increasing awareness of the impact a business's environmental performance can have on cost reduction and efficiency. (6)
What is a Standard?
All British Standards are developed with a period of public enquiry and full consultation. They incorporate the views and expertise of a very wide range of interests from consumers, academia, special interest groups, government, business and industry. As a result, standards represent a consensus on current best practice.
British Standards are available to buy directly from BSI. They can also be ordered via the publishing units of many other national standards bodies (ANSI, DIN, etc.) and from several specialized suppliers of technical specifications. Like with the products of other national standards bodies, the per-page price of these documents is substantially higher than that of mass-market books, which hinders access by students and average consumers with a casual interest in such specifications.
Many British Standards (BS) - as well as some of the European and International Standards that were adopted as British Standards (BS EN, BS ISO) - are also available in public and university libraries in the United Kingdom, either on paper or online via a British Standards Online subscription. However, the BSI makes standards available to these libraries only under severe licence restrictions, which forbid loan, inter-library loan, open-shelf access, and copying of more than 10% of a document by library users.
Examples of recent British Standards include:
- BS 25999-1:2006 Code of practice for business continuity management
- BS 5499-10:2006 Safety signs, including fire safety signs. Code of practice for the use of safety signs, including fire
- safety signs
- BS 8887-1:2006 Design for manufacture, assembly, disassembly and end-of-life processing (MADE). General concepts, process and
- requirements
- BS 5268 Structural use of timber
- BS 5392-Part 1:1976 Specification for ABS (Acylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) fittings for use with ABS pressure pipe.
Global Locations
BSI Group has 45 overseas offices and their staff are deployed in the following regions: 57 per cent in Europe and the Middle East in 17 offices; 17 per cent in the Americas in 5 offices, and 26 per cent in Asia in 23 offices (7). Almost every overseas office deals exclusively with the Management Systems branch of BSI Group. The Iceland office maintains a Product Services component with a similar component recently formed in China. The oldest office abroad was established in 1991 in Reston, Virginia, USA and is now the headquarters for the Americas offices. (8)
Statistics
- Number of BSI staff 2,155
- Subscribing members 14,841
- Standards projects 9,174
- Current British Standards 25,793
- BSI Group clients in Asia 11,000
- Ranking in North American and UK certification markets 1st
- Business locations certified by BSI 60,000(9)
Current News
ID cards The onset of biometric passports and the possible introduction of ID cards have not only caused heated political debate but raised many questions about the practicality of implementing this new technology. BSI published the world’s first international standards on biometrics, to be used for recording “biometric” data. There are four new standards which cover data structures to digitally record finger, face and iris images and fingerprint features. Some of these standards will be used for putting facial images on UK Passports as early as February 2007 and other biometric information on ID Cards should they go ahead. (10)
London 2012 Olympics announcement The awarding of the 2012 Olympics to London will greatly impact businesses and communities in the next several years. In the building phase of the Olympics, construction companies will be using more than 1,000 British standards to complete their projects. In addition, BSI is exploring activities including developing a sustainable events management systems standard to serve as a benchmark for this and future events. (10)
Food safety High levels of public and press interest in healthy eating, product recall, bird flu, cloned livestock, and genetically modified foods emphasise the importance of managing food safety. BSI is actively involved with the development of an international standard for food safety management (ISO 22000) which covers all organisations in the food chain from farmers to catering and defines the requirements of a food safety management system. The improved processes strengthen productivity for businesses and provides consistency and traceability of products through the supply chain. (10)
References
- [1] Entropy
- [2] News Releases
- [3]British Standards
- [4] Management Systems
- [5]Products and Testing
- [6] History
- [7]About BSI
- [8] Management Systems Homepage
- [9] BSI Fast Facts
- [10] Kitemark
- [11]CE Marking
- Robert C. McWilliam. BSI: The first hundred years. 2001. Thanet Press. London.
- About BSI [[12]]
- Management Systems Homepage [[13]]
- CE Marking [[14]]
- Kitemark [[15]]
- History [[16]]
- About BSI [[17]]
- BSI and Britannic strike 41.3 million property deal. November 9, 2000.
http://www.bsi-global.com/News/Releases/2000/November/n3f029d17e1642.xalter
- BSI Fast Facts. [[18]]
- BSI News Room. 2005: A standard year? 19 December 2005. [[19]]
- “Kitemark.” Annual Review and Summary Financial Statements. September 2005: page 16