Sello Motseta
19th November 2019
Limited testing capability in industry and the high testing costs of BOBS facilities and equipment were some of the reasons cited by local stakeholders for the reluctant absorption of BOBS standards at a standards and trade workshop facilitated by the Commonwealth Standards Network.
There was also a lack of understanding of the value of the exercise by industry stakeholders.
“There is a limited awareness and recognition of Botswana standards and the BOBS mark by industry and customers and hence a lack of motivation for the use of standards,” said Obonye C. Lopang, Engineering Standards – Botswana Bureau of Standards(BOBS).
He said, “There is also a lack of implementation and companies by companies to standards, sine most are voluntary.”
According to a survey conducted by the Botswana Bureau of Standards(BOBS) 37% of organizations used standards in their organizations. The analysis showed that the distribution of standards was 20% procurement, 16% testing, 15% certification, 12% research and design and 215 regulations.
20% of stakeholders in survey who did not use BOBS standards maintained the standards were neither developed nor published by industry, already employed other standards like SANS, DIN and BSI, lacked awareness of their value and operated at depots where standards were never used or availed.
“Procuring entities were not specifying standards when requesting to be supplied with products and services. So suppliers were not obliged to comply with any standards,” said Obonye C. Lopang, Engineering Standards – Botswana Bureau of Standards(BOBS).
He said, “Standards that affected services were mostly voluntary and therefore there is nothing compelling companies to comply with them.”
According to the Commonwealth Standards Network(CSN), a voluntary association of 53 independent states accounting for 2.4bn(31% of global association) intra commonwealth trade and productive investment are on track to exceed US$1 trillion by 2020.
Bilateral costs for trading partners in Commonwealth countries are on average 19% less than between those in non-member states. Policies which build upon this advantage by improving technical and institutional capacity of National Standards Bodies will allegedly trigger even greater gains.
Shyam Kumar, Senior Advisor on Standards and Quality Management at British Standards Institute(BSI), revealed that independent research has confirmed that accreditation has a positive economic value of nearly 1billion pounds on the UK economy each year.
“Every 1 pound spent on accreditation was seen in a study to produce a fifty fold economic benefit for the UK, could be assumed to also apply where overseas bodies choose to use UKAS accreditation,” said Kumar.
Kumar also shared example, of Mauritius where the contribution of standards to the corporate value creation is estimated at 4.5% of average annual sales revenue for the period 2007-2011.
“If we include the special process for the production of structured wall pipes, it increased 11.2% in the last two years. Standards have made a major contribution to the production function, leading to greater efficiency and effectiveness and less downtime and scrap,” said Kumar.
A standard is generally an agreed way of doing something. It could be about making a product, managing a process, delivering a service or supplying materials. They can cover a huge range of activities undertaken by organizations and used by their customers.
BOBS has facilitated the developed of 1828 Botswana Standards. Out of the total number of developed standards, 83(or 5%) have been declared compulsory. These standards are also listed in the schedule of the Standards (Import Inspection) Regulations.
Photo Caption: Shyam Kumar, Senior Advisor on Standards and Quality Management at British Standards Institute(BSI)
