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Engineering

Engineering standards are vital to the industry. Whatever you engineer or manufacture, you need to make sure that your products are of consistent high quality. We provide a wide range of engineering standards and documents to suit your requirements and help your organization work to best practices. These enable you to comply with regulations, avoid product failures and recalls, and help your engineering organization enter new markets.

Engineering standards are enabling excellence

Explore the benefits of standards to your engineering organization

What are the management system standards your engineering business needs?
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What are the management system standards your engineering business needs?

Engineering firms face a set of highly specific challenges, including a complex regulatory landscape and increasing competition in a global marketplace. It is crucial for engineering organizations to ensure they are complying with health and safety requirements, product specification and design requirements, machine and material requirements, as well as the multiple other UK engineering regulations that cover all aspects of the industry. No matter the size of your organization, or the specific industries you serve, you can benefit from implementing one or several standards. What are the business benefits of implementing standards? Implementing management system standards gives your engineering business a competitive edge when entering new markets, as it represents a known and trusted standard of quality. Implementing a management system can also help you to: Shorten cycle times and improve accountability. Achieve compliance with new regulations faster. Become recognized in your field as an environmental leader. Streamline your supply chain and reduce your reliance on fossil fuels. Enhance awareness and improve your overall security and safety posture. Engage staff at all levels and secure executive-level participation in quality management goals. Together, these advantages make for stronger organizations that can effectively use sophisticated management tools to grow and succeed, even in an uncertain economy. The key standards for your engineering organization Adopting methods of best practice is critically important to ensure change is managed and risk minimized. This is vital for a variety of reasons, including the need to be conscious of the effects of these changes on the environment and health and safety. Management systems standards ensure a consistency of approach that drives efficiency forward. BS EN ISO 9001: Quality management system BS EN ISO 9001 is the internationally recognized Quality Management System (QMS) standard that can benefit any size organization. Designed to be a powerful business improvement tool, BS EN ISO 9001 Quality management systems can help you to: Continually improve, streamline operations and reduce costs Win more business and compete in tenders Satisfy more customers Be more resilient and build a sustainable business Show you have strong corporate governance Work effectively with stakeholders and your supply chain To read more about how to implement a quality management system into your business practices, click here. BS EN ISO 14001: Environmental management system BS EN ISO 14001 provides guidance on how to consider multiple aspects of your business procurement, storage, distribution, product development, manufacturing, etc.- so that it reduces its impact on the environment. It also drives you to evaluate how you manage emergency response, customer expectations, stakeholders, and your relationships with your local community. Depending on how your organization operates today, this may not require a lot of change beyond documenting what and how you do or it may mean a number of changes that can result in a more efficient business, cost, or waste reductions and give stakeholders peace of mind. BS EN ISO 50001: Energy management system Used by large and small organizations across the world to manage and reduce energy use and costs, BS EN ISO 50001 is an excellent framework to help implement an energy management system (EnMS). From large retailers to smaller manufacturers and small businesses, the standard offers organizations the opportunity to become more resilient against energy costs and availability. Whether you’re interested in implementing BS EN ISO 50001 to reduce costs, comply with legislation or increase your sustainability, implementing the standard provides a systematic approach to achieving all three. BS EN ISO 45001: Occupational health and safety management system BS EN ISO 45001 is designed to prevent work-related injury and ill-health and to provide safe and healthy workplaces. As an international standard, BS EN ISO 45001 crosses geographic, political, economic, commercial, and social boundaries. This sets a single benchmark for the management of occupational health and safety. So, if your organization operates or trades internationally, you can work to a single standard which can simplify your business. BS EN ISO/IEC 27001: Information security management system Internationally recognized BS EN ISO/IEC 27001 is an excellent framework that helps organizations manage and protect their information assets so that they remain safe and secure. It helps you to continually review and refine the way you do this, not only for today but also for the future. Add these key standards to your collection today. Discover BSI Knowledge Want to access and manage the standards you need to meet your business's goals - all in one place? With a BSI Knowledge subscription, you will have the flexibility and visibility to manage the essential standards you need to work confidently and optimize your supply chain. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM04 Management, Law, Quality module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more.Read more
The importance of quality management in your engineering organization
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The importance of quality management in your engineering organization

A quality management system (QMS) enables engineers to electronically monitor, manage and document their quality processes to help ensure that products are manufactured within tolerance and comply with all essential standards to avoid product defects. Here are three examples of where QMS implementation can benefit an engineering company: 1. Improving business strategy Engineering companies need quality management standards to support their operations in terms of business strategy, technology identification, and technology adoption to be able to do this properly. Additionally, the current quality management systems that manufacturers use to run their businesses will need to continue to change to keep up with the ever-changing requirements from users and their customers. One way of starting to look at what this means in practice is to look at the recent BSI publication PAS 1040 Digital readiness – Adopting digital technologies in manufacturing. This innovation standard helps senior management within engineering manufacturing companies to assess their digital readiness and understand the areas they need to develop in order to increase value from the adoption of digital technologies. 2. Reducing the environmental footprint Many engineering sectors have been pioneers in the use and development of Lean methodologies, with these contributing to greater efficiencies and labour productivity. For example, some of the UK’s best manufacturers, by being truly excellent in the implementation of Lean, can compete effectively on quality with companies from Germany and compete on cost with companies in the Far East. However, non-labour resource costs are typically 4.5-5 times higher than labour resource costs for manufacturers. This suggests that there is now a great deal more potential business benefit and opportunity for engineering organizations from managing their non-labour resource use better than they have from trying to squeeze more value out of their existing labour resources. Digital QMS technologies can give part of the solution simply by supplying better real-time data. For example, a factory with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors placed appropriately can deliver to the operators of the production process much better information about where and how they are using certain resources to enable better decisions about how to improve it. Additionally, a fully visible digitally connected collaboration networks can extend this view across an entire engineering supply chain. Another interesting opportunity is how the use of such digital technologies products with a significant lifetime can give rise to innovative new business models, such as through-life engineering services. With these service offerings, the manufacturer may no longer sell the product to a customer but instead guarantee its availability, taking on some of the risks and accepting the operating costs. When that happens, the onus is on the engineer to create a product that has the highest level of resource efficiency to reduce their own costs. BSI has produced some guidance on such business models in the form of PAS 280. 3. Health and safety on the factory floor Cobots, or collaborative robots, are robots designed to work amongst humans within a factory environment without the need to be walled off or separated from people. The advantages they bring is that they can do a lot of things that engineers either do not want to do, or do the same tasks better, without being consigned to an area or role. Thus, their use can accelerate the continuous improvement processes that a quality management standard brings to an engineering company. However, a barrier to their use is that it is not yet clear how engineering organizations can implement the use of a cobot in a way that does not pose risk to a worker on the factory floor. BSI has a number of standards that can help with this, such as PD ISO/TS 15066:2016. This specifies safety requirements for cobots and the work environment and supplements the requirements and guidance on collaborative industrial robot operation given in the main ISO robot safety standards. Additionally, BSI recently reviewed and published PD 5304 Guidance on safe use of machinery that gives guidance and advice to engineers looking to comply with the Machinery Directive. Digital Adoption, QMS, and BSI The QMS of an engineering company is central to its present and future success, and digital technologies can play a critical role in enabling the continuous improvement of the business. These investments are not without risk and BSI can help companies on their journey to adopting them via a range of management systems standards, such as BS EN ISO 14001, BS EN ISO 9001, and BS EN ISO 45001. Experience the benefits of implementing a quality management system into your engineering business by adding BS EN ISO 9001 into your collection today. Discover BSI Knowledge BS EN ISO 9001 and over 100,000 more internationally recognized standards are available for simple and flexible access with a BSI Knowledge subscription. In your quality-critical industry, our tailored subscription service puts the control in your hands, with traceability to monitor and demonstrate your business's access to standards. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM14 Manufacturing Engineering module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more.
Health and safety in the engineering industry: A standards-led approach
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Health and safety in the engineering industry: A standards-led approach

Recognizing and managing the health and wellbeing of your people has never been so important. All employers are required to assess risks have policies and procedures in place to ensure a safe working environment. BSI is the world leader in occupational health and safety management systems. We were the originators of the first guide on occupational health and safety in 1996 which laid the foundation for OHSAS 18001, the standard upon which the world’s first global occupational health and safety management system – BS EN ISO 45001 - was built. Set the standard for occupational health An effective occupational health and safety management system will help you to protect and enhance your most important asset, your people, to drive business excellence. It is especially important for organizations in the engineering sector to have stringent health and safety processes, as employees are working in higher-risk environments, such as workshops, factories, or laboratories. Supervisors and managers should ensure that safe working practices are being followed and action taken if unsafe practices are observed. Machinery should all be well maintained and have the correct safeguards. It should also only be used by those trained and competent to do so and organizations should be able to provide evidence to prove this. Conditions will vary from clean workshops to those where machines are leaking fluids, emitting fumes, and swarf accumulates on the floor. General tidiness is often a good indication of how well other issues are being managed. Many serious accidents that occur in engineering workshops could be avoided if the wearing of gloves was prevented whilst working close to rotating machinery such as drills and lathes. In addition, when operating engineering machinery avoid wearing loose clothing, long hair, or jewellery should be avoided when operating engineering machinery. Using standards can offer a set of powerful business and marketing tools for engineering organizations of all sizes. You can use them to fine-tune your performance and manage the risks you face while operating in more efficient and sustainable ways; they'll allow you to demonstrate the quality of what you do to your customers, and they help you to see how to embed health and safety best practices into to your organization. The benefits of implementing health and safety standards include: Increasing organizational resilience through proactive risk prevention, innovation, and continual improvement Strengthening of legal and regulatory compliance whilst reducing business losses Demonstrating brand responsibility by committing to safe, healthy, and sustainable work One global occupational health and safety system for all businesses, of all sizes Meeting the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals Organizations that are committed to sustainability are increasingly aligning their corporate strategies to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Effective health, safety, and wellbeing programs demonstrate an engineering organization’s commitment to ensuring decent work conditions, health, wellbeing, and equality practices, as well as other aspects of sustainability. For organizations seeking to enhance their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) profile, positive and proactive health, safety and wellbeing culture send a powerful message to shareholders and stakeholders, including workers, that they truly care for their people. All our health, safety, and wellbeing standards support engineering organizations on their SDG journey. To read more about achieving sustainability in the engineering sector, click here. What are the key health and safety standards for the engineering sector? There are several important health and safety standards that engineering organizations can implement: BS EN ISO 45003 Occupational health and safety management — Psychological health and safety at work: managing psychosocial risks — Guidelines. BS EN ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management. BS 45002 Series Occupational health and safety management systems. General guidelines on the application of BS EN ISO 45001. BS 8599-1:2019 Workplace first aid kits. Specification for the contents of workplace first aid kits. BS EN ISO 4007:2018 Personal protective equipment. Eye and face protection. Vocabulary. BS EN 1731:2006 Personal eye protection. Mesh eye and face protectors. BS EN 12464-1:2011 Light and lighting. Lighting of workplaces. Indoor workplaces. Add these key health and safety standards to your collection today. Discover BSI Knowledge Get everyone in your engineering business involved in embedding a culture of health and safety. A BSI Knowledge subscription gives you instant access to the resources you need to improve your health and safety processes. The flexibility and visibility it provides of the best practices guidance enable you to get the most from your standards. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM07 Occupational & Personal Safety module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more.
How net zero standards help to reduce emissions in engineering design
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How net zero standards help to reduce emissions in engineering design

The UK has a world-class reputation for engineering design, particularly in high-profile sectors such as aerospace and automotive. An important goal for this area is the move towards achieving net zero CO2 emissions, particularly where engineered products, such as cars and aeroplanes, can reduce emissions throughout their operational life by learning from experience, rather than this being fixed at the design stage. Digitalization lies at the heart of achieving net zero through this new approach to engineering design, yet too many digital transformation projects fail because the right environment for collaborating in this way does not exist. A Digital Approach to Design Achieving net-zero CO2 emissions is a major goal across all industries. However, for those sectors with products that have a long life, such as aviation, the window for designing products that meet this goal is very small and the design stage is dwarfed by the in-service time during which the actual environmental impact is realized. This is compounded by regulatory constraints that limit the extent to which changes in product specification can be made and largely prevent manufacturers from making significant innovations once the necessary approvals have been achieved. Therefore, the goal of meeting net zero carbon emissions requires a fundamentally new approach to engineering. It requires through-life co-creation to take part much more broadly than at present, a greater understanding of environmental issues, and a new approach to the design and assurance cycle. Even if there was a way of improving the carbon emissions of a machine during its lifetime, current regulations prevent adaptations from being made to the design. Designers and manufacturers are now looking at the possibility of fitting sensors to a product that could collect performance data and automatically send it to designers. Using an AI and digital twin system, modifications to improve performance could be designed, manufactured, and then fitted during routine maintenance. To learn more about reflexive engineering design, watch the on-demand webinar now: Moving towards Net Zero – engineering a sustainable and resilient world. The Role of Standards in Digital Engineering In the UK, we have a very strong engineering design presence, especially in the automotive and aerospace industries. With companies such as Nissan, Rolls Royce, Jaguar Land Rover, and Airbus all having strong design centers in the UK, and we want to develop that capability. BS 8888 defines the requirements for the technical specification of products and their component parts. The standard explains the way in which engineering drawings outline and present these specifications and covers all the symbology and information that engineers and designers need to include on their drawings, whether they are produced in 2D or in 3D, created using CAD systems and 3D modeling. BSI is also at an early stage in investigations regarding a standards model for reflexive engineering design and we are very excited by the possibilities. Such a system could bring huge benefits to UK industry, developing our design and engineering capability and allowing improvements to be integrated without having to start from scratch with a new design. As a starting point, to reassure business owners and provide clear guidance, BSI has published PAS 1040, a guide for adopting digital technologies in manufacturing. It will help them assess how ready they are to adopt digital manufacturing, what different parts of the business would be affected, and where to focus their attention. The road to achieving Net Zero affects all facets of engineering. Adopting digital manufacturing into the design process will help organizations lower their carbon emissions and help the engineering industry achieve its net zero goal. As the pressure builds for engineering businesses to achieve net zero, knowing which standards can help you and how to share their guidance within your organization can seem like a huge challenge. With a BSI Knowledge subscription, you will have the flexibility and visibility to manage the essential standards you need in order to start your journey to net zero with confidence. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to one of our pre-built modules, such as GBM06 Environment, Wastes, and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more. To help your organization prepare for the digital design revolution of tomorrow and lower carbon emissions, download PAS 1040 for free today.

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