BNSI ‘not up to scratch’

THE BARBADOS NATIONAL Standards Institution (BNSI) is not “up to scratch” in terms of its operations.This is why it is seeking to upgrade both its physical plant as well as its organisational structure.In a telephone interview on Thursday, project co-ordinator for the modernisation programme, Fabian Griffin, outlined the work done so far.The interview followed Griffin’s presentation at a BNSI/CARICOM Regional Organisation For Standards And Quality seminar in the National Housing Corporation office complex in Warrens, St Michael.“They do have facilities but it is not up to scratch and cannot do what an institution like BNSI should be able to do. We want to upgrade to a modern 21st century organisation.“There is a current site for a laboratory, but there could be challenges as the laboratory uses chemicals which could be hazardous so it’s up to Town Planning now,” he said.Griffin said they planned to send proposals in by early July and were hoping construction would start in September. Tenders had been issued for a firm to do the architectural design. He said they had also issued tenders for a firm to look at upgrading Barbados’ national standards and there was already a firm “on the ground” working on a five-year strategic plan to update the skill sets of staff.“We have a number of standards in Barbados and the BNSI is the repository for them. However, we have not been able to keep up with global changes in standards so this firm will revise and update them if necessary to conform with existing global standards,” Griffin said.“We also have a firm looking at the institutional strengthening of the organisation a well as functional areas such as human resources, accounts and administration.“We want to design a new organisational structure by looking at the services BNSI is currently performing and focussing on what business areas they should be working on in order to see if the current skill set is good enough or if new training or staff is needed,” he said.In addition, Griffin said tenders had gone out for a fourth firm to handle the public relations side of the BNSI as he said he found too many people were unaware of the process. (CA)