Flex Standards

BSI’s Flex Standards provide a new, flexible way to develop consensus-based good practice that dynamically adapts to keep pace with fast-changing markets.

These Flex Standards, known as BSI Flex for short, incorporate:

• Flexible development. The scope and rate of change are market driven.
• Rapid iteration. New versions can be created in just a few weeks.
• Responsive evolution. Dynamically adapts to the needs of the market over time.
• Open consultation. Focused on areas where consensus can be achieved quickly.

This dynamic approach to standardization is best suited to areas with lower levels of certainty about what constitutes a “good” approach and where higher levels of flexibility are required.

BSI’s Flex Standards enable:

• An up-to-date reference point for the market.
• Greater resilience to market shocks with adaptable good practice.
• Support for continuous innovation for organizations and industries.
• Testing and trialling with two-way flow of thinking on good practice.

We are already starting to apply a flexible and dynamic approach, including in the built environment and transport sectors. For example, BSI used the Flex process in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We worked with experts from many sectors and disciplines to rapidly create a set of Safe Working Guidelines. The Guidelines created a framework for safe working during the pandemic, to protect people from work-related risks from COVID-19. We published the first Safe Working Guidelines BSI Flex standard in May 2020, and Versions 2 and 3 followed in July and August. The Guidelines were then used as the basis of a new international standard, PD ISO/PAS 45005:2020, Occupational health and safety management — General guidelines for safe working during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BSI Flex is also being used to support areas of rapid innovation. For example, we worked with the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and industry to develop a CAV vocabulary as a BSI Flex standard and make it available through an interactive website showing each term and its definition with clear version history. Three versions, or iterations, of the vocabulary were created within less than a year. The iterative approach proved to be valuable, with new terms emerging and existing ones amended, or sometimes dropped based on stakeholder feedback. This has meant that the latest thinking on good practice is available as a resource for industry and it is helping to inform future standards development.