From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Summary

BSI British Standards is a division of BSI Group which also includes BSI Management Systems, a management systems registrar and BSI Product Services, a testing organisation. British Standards is incorporated under a Royal Charter and is formally designated as the National Standards Body (NSB) for the UK.

The standards produced are titled British Standard XXXX[-P]:YYYY where XXXX is the number of the standard, P is the number of the part of the standard (where the standard is split into multiple parts) and YYYY is the year in which the standard came into effect. British Standards currently has over 27,000 active standards. Products are commonly specified as meeting a particular British Standard, and in general this can be done without any certification or independent testing. The standard simply provides a shorthand way of claiming that certain specifications are met, while encouraging manufacturers to adhere to a common method for such a specification.

BSI Group began in 1901 as the Engineering Standards Committee, led by James Mansergh, to standardise the number and type of steel sections, in order to make British manufacturers more efficient and competitive.

Over time the standards developed to cover many aspects of tangible engineering, and then engineering methodologies including quality systems, safety and security.

Examples of British Standards

• BS 0 A standard for standards specifies Development, Structure and Drafting of British Standards themselves.
• BS 546 for mains power plugs and sockets (older standard)
• BS 1363 for mains, power plugs and sockets
• BS 1852 resistor and capacitor value coding
• BS 4343 for industrial electrical power connectors
• BS 5750 for quality management, the source for ISO 9000
• BS 5930 for site investigations
• BS 5950 for structural steel
• BS 7671 Requirements for Electrical Installations, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (formerly Institution of Electrical Engineers/IEE) electrical "regs"

External Links

• Source Wikipedia article on british standards