Business - Quality Standards

Details of requirements, specifications, guidelines and characteristics that products, services and processes should consistently meet to ensure:  

• Quality matches expectations  
• Fit for purpose  
• Meet the needs of users 

Quality Standards are an essential element of quality management systems.  

Clearly defined standards and requirements make it easier for companies to meet what their consumers consider ‘quality’ and they improve the overall vision of what the company should work toward.  

A BSI ‘kitemark’ on a product implies to customers that it has been manufactured and produced to a high level of quality, and will fit for the purpose for which it was advertised.  

Standards provide organisations with the shared vision, understanding, procedures, and vocabulary needed to meet the expectations of their stakeholders. Because standards present precise descriptions and terminology, they offer an objective and authoritative basis for organisations and consumers around the world to communicate and conduct business. 

• Customer Focus 
• Leadership 
• Engagement of Peoples 
• Process Approach 
• Improvement 
• Evidence-based decision making 
• Relationship Management 

• For businesses:
  • Important bottom line of every organisation. Successful recognise standards as business tools that should be managed alongside quality, safety, intellectual property, and environmental policies. Standardisation leads to lower costs by reducing redundancy, minimising errors or recalls, and reducing time to market. 
• For the global economy:
  • Businesses and organisations complying to quality standards helps products, services and personnel cross borders and also ensures products manufactured in one country can be sold and used in another. 
• For consumers:
  • Many quality management standards provide safeguards for users of products and services, but standardisation can also make consumers’ lives simpler. A product or service based on an international standard will be compatible with more products or services worldwide, which increases the number of choices available across the globe. 

• Satisfy customers’ quality standards  
• Ensure safety and reliability of products and services  
• Comply with regulations, often at a lower cost  
• Defining and controlling internal processes  
• Meeting environmental objectives  

• Increase profits  
• Reduce losses or costs  
• Improve competitiveness  
• Gain market access worldwide  
• Increase customer loyalty  

Produced by the BSI Group:  

• Set standards of quality for goods and services  
• Work with industry experts, government bodies, trade associations, businesses and consumers to develop standards that reflect good business practice  

Currently have 50,000 standards which companies can purchase.  

• Improve, streamline operations and reduce costs  
• Internationally-agreed set of documented rules and guidelines that provide clear criteria for implementing and maintaining a quality system in your business.  

• Food safety in the manufacturing of feed for animals  
• Ensure confidence in animal food and feed production by collecting good animal food, feed and ingredient practices from manufacturers around the world.  

• Specification for greyhound trainers’ residential kennels  
• DEFRA following a government review of secondary legislation specific to greyhound racing  
• Consensus-based specification for residential racing greyhound kennels based upon best practice and the collaborative experience of animal welfare organisations, veterinarians, government and industry specialists.   
• The goal of this specification is to provide a kennel standard that supports good welfare practice.  

• Standards of equestrian helmets  

• Leading trade association that represents all landscape professionals, from design, build and maintenance through to supply, training and education.  
• Confidently offers nationwide coverage, with a landscape professional based in every county  
• Purpose of this standard is to ensure that BALI registered members can demonstrate that they have sufficient Commitment, Systems, Skills, Resources and Controls in place to consistently meet relevant customer, legislative and regulatory requirements in a measured and professional manner.  
• Broken into 3 key areas:  
  • Management responsibility  
  • Resource management  
  • Product and services delivery  

• DEFRA sets policy and enforces controls and restrictions on the import, movement and keeping of certain plants, plant pests and other materials such as soil.  
• If you are based in England and Wales and you’re moving plants or plant products in the EU that can host quarantine pests and diseases, they may need plant passports.  
• The most notable change that our industry needs to be aware of is that as of 14 December 2019:  

• Plants traded for planting will require a plant passport for their movement within the EU – that includes movement within the UK  
• Records of plant passports issued and received need to be kept for three years  
• Those trading plants via distance selling contracts e.g. online, over the phone, will be required to pass plant passports down to the final end user e.g. domestic gardeners purchasing for personal use