Are you interested in representing IIMS on the BSI committee?


For many years, IIMS was represented on the SME/32 ‘Ships and Marine Technology’ BSI (British Standards Institute) committee by Peter Morgan, who has now retired. Are you interested in taking up this unpaid role, representing IIMS and getting involved in this vitally important work? It is described as ‘heavy committee’ work, so if this is not your skill set, move on.


About BSI ‘Our purpose is to inspire trust for a more resilient world. Our solutions and services improve performance and support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. At BSI, our mission is to share knowledge, innovation and best practice to help people and organizations make excellence a habit. This is underpinned by our role as the national standards body and through our prestigious Royal Charter’.


What are standards? Standards define best practice in many different areas. They are put together by groups of experts and come in a number of different kinds, from a set of definitions to a series of strict rules.


Standards are agreed ways of doing something, written down as a set of precise criteria so they can be used as rules, guidelines or definitions.


This is the situation the BSI committee wants to avoid: ‘What bloody idiot wrote that? There is no way I can survey that as intended’.


And this is the desired outcome that BSI seeks: ‘This is a meaningful standard that helps manufacturers meet the regulations and is easy to survey and certificate during build and operation so that the owner can be confident in its performance’.


Members of the BSI committee attend and mirror regulatory developments at IMO in real time and horizon scanning. As new regulations develop the committee assists ISO in developing the implementation tools that provide the link between the regulation and the operation. The BSI committee does most of the items that Class Societies do not do and, ultimately this can assist with keeping IIMS members up to date and understanding how new developments may influence them in the future.


ISO mainly develops manufacturing standards, but also systems and inspection standards. The ability to understand how a product can be built to be surveyed, from a life raft to a yacht to an oil tanker, is a very important perspective during the development of standards. And of course, if that element is not represented during standards development, the end result is an item that cannot effectively be surveyed during manufacture and operation.


The BSI Committee aims to meet two or three times a year and alternates between London and Southampton to facilitate MCA attendance. One presumes this is all online currently.


This is not a paid role, but IIMS understands any out of pocket expenses incurred in performing the role will be met.


To express your interest in representing IIMS on the BSI committee, please email IIMS CEO, Mike Schwarz, at info@iims.org.uk.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14