An overview
Fast-track standards are available to all organizations wishing to create a credible private or public standard. They are driven by the needs of the sponsoring organization while still being controlled by guidelines set out by BSI to ensure credibility. There are two types of fast-track standards:
- Publicly Available Specifications (PAS), covering either products or processes, that you sponsor.
- Private standards that ensure consistency, consensus and cost-savings throughout your organization. By outsourcing, you free valuable in-house resource to concentrate on core business. View the private standard service cycle (File type: Adobe Acrobat, File size: 53.06kb).
A fast-track standard typically takes between six to nine months to develop rather than the typical timeframe of two to three years for a formal British Standard. It allows the organization sponsoring the document a greater degree of control and flexibility over the development. Once published by BSI, the document will have all the functionality of a British Standard for the purposes of creating schemes such as management systems, product benchmarks and codes of practice. After two years the standard is reviewed and a decision is made along with the sponsor as to whether or not it should be taken forward to become a formal British Standard.
The development process
The fundamental basis of the fast-track standard development process is that an organization, together with its key stakeholders in a specific subject area, can develop a specification to suit their timeframes whilst independently consulting with wider industry. Crucially, the development of these standards cannot conflict or contradict with any work within the formal standards arena.
Developing the standard
On approval from the sponsor, BSI carries out a research project. This research is conducted by BSI’s Business Information Consultancy Service and seeks to identify other formal and informal standards work within the UK and Europe that relate to the project. The research also looks for professional information outside the standards arena, such as current best practice that exists in the field that may be of benefit in developing the document.
Whilst this research being carried out, BSI provides the sponsor with expert coaching of the technical contributors to the base document. The coaching is intended to provide an understanding of how standards and best practice documents should be written. Once completed, the technical contributors have the knowledge to draft their relevant sections of the document.
Together with BSI’s development team the sponsor then has the opportunity to formalize the scope of the document. Once the scope is formalized, the steering panel is formed. This typically has between five and eight active participants, including technical experts on the subject matter who are responsible for creating the base document. Once the steering panel has finalized its initial contribution, BSI performs the necessary editorial work on the document to yield a first draft. With the approval of the steering panel, this document is then circulated to a wider review panel.
The review panel, comprising a wide group of interested parties who are likely to benefit from or be impacted by the implementation of this standard, is key to producing this highly credible industry specification. It typically consists of between twenty to fifty representatives and comprises the following:
- formal standards committees
- government departments
- relevant trade associations
- key stakeholders of the sponsor
- consumer groups.
BSI’s independence in standards development is crucial in ensuring quality feedback is provided by the review group. BSI collates all comments provided by the group and submits them in the form of a report back to the steering panel. At this time, the steering panel has the opportunity to decide which of the comments should be incorporated into the specification. Once these decisions are made, BSI provides the final editorial consultancy on the document to yield the specification ready for publication.
