Raising the BAR

22 October 2008

The new BSI Standard for commercial movers has helped to differentiate between removal companies in the British Association of Removers who specialise in business and commercial moves

THE COMMERCIAL MOVING GROUP (CMG) of the British Association of Removers (BAR) has launched a new BSI standard (PAS126) that raises the bar on quality for commercial and office moving. PAS 126 was developed by BSI on behalf of BAR with the help of other organisations including the BIFM and representatives of the insurance industry. The first certificates were presented to accredited CMG members at the association’s annual conference in Edinburgh in May.

The introduction of the new standard now completes the suite of standards that apply to the UK moving industry giving enhanced confidence for the industry’s customers. The new standard will be of particular interest to FM managers, premises managers, property consultants, fit-out companies and all those
involved in the commercial relocation process.

Standard
The initiative was begun three years ago when the CMG realised that the professional commercial moving industry needed something to identify those moving companies that specialised in the office and commercial market by providing a quality standard just for them. The Standard has been three years in
development and now provides a clear distinction between those companies that take commercial relocation seriously and those that do not.

Three years seems a long time but development would have taken even longer had the CMG not been able to draw upon the BAR’s experience in developing other standards for the moving industry. For example, the CMG used BSI, who has worked with BAR previously to develop the removals standard BS EN 12522 and
the storage standard BS EN 14873, and was able to incorporate the common elements from these standards within PAS126.

It has also been possible to launch this new standard quickly by choosing PAS (Publicly Available Standard) rather than the full BSI standard. Chris Waymouth from QSS, the BAR’s quality standards company, explained that it was the intention to upgrade PAS126 to a full BSI standard within six months.

According to Chris Savill from BSI Product Services a BSI standard verifies the standard of workmanship as meeting the industry standard. “It differentiates those businesses from those not performing to standard; sets a benchmark that businesses can strive towards; helps improve performance across an industry;
improves customer confidence; aids selfregulation; and helps reduce risk of enforced legislation,” he said.

The CMG has also taken the bold move of making PAS126 compulsory for all its members. This will be achieved by including accreditation to PAS126 as a condition of membership for all new applications. Existing CMG members will have until August 2009 to achieve accreditation. Brian Maidman from Maidmans Removals and Storage in Bournemouth, who was a member of the working group for the development of the
Standard, said that no CMG member should have difficulty in achieving the standard. “All CMG companies are professionals in their business and compliance to PAS126 should be fairly straight forward for them.”

Ian Studd, chairman of the CMG was understandably delighted with the success of the new standard. He said that the Standards for the domestic moving and storage sides of the industry had been well established for some years and it was only right that the commercial and office moving sector had
something by which their own expertise could be judged. “It will make life for our customers much easier knowing that holders of the PAS126 standard all provide a high level of service. This allows our members to compete on the value added services that convert a very good service into a great one knowing that they are competing on level terms with other professional organisations.”

The Commercial Moving Group has 72 members in the UK. Although the PAS126 standard will be available to the whole commercial moving industry only the CMG has taken the unprecedented step of making it mandatory throughout the association.

Current list of companies awarded PAS 126:

....Exclusive Move Solutions
....Harrow Green Ltd.
....Maidmans Removals & Storage
....Specialised Moves