In July 2001 the Divisions was reorganized to more efficiently deliver its mandate. The Standards Development, Standards Technical Services and Certification Departments were brought together and merged to form the Standards & Certification Department as a single entity. Three other Departments (The Food Inspectorate Department, The Standards Compliance Department and the Weights and Measures Department) were also brought together and merged to form the Inspectorate Department.

The Western Office is being brought under the structure of the Standardization Division with physical and systemic reorganization to improve deficiencies in its systems and procedures.

BEFORE THE REORGANIZATION

Since its inception in 1969 the Bureau of Standards has produced 364 standards as listed below.

In addition to this we have a total of 77,132 standards in our collection.

Up to July 2001 Standards were written by committees set up by the Bureau of Standards and these committees of volunteers had to be approved by the Standards Council. These committees were sometimes not representative of the particular industry for which the Standard was written. The implementation of the Standards were therefore many times wrought with difficulties as the business people saw them as "Bureau of standards" Standards and not their own.

In addition to this the committees were usually in competition with each other to determine which committee could write the most standards each year. The down side of this was that many Standards were written which

AFTER THE REORGANIZATION

The committees that write standards are now set up by Industry under the facilitation of the Standardization Division. This process means that once the committees come before the Standards Council for approval they are ratified.

The Bureau continues to work towards the development and promulgation of the standards necessary for local product development and for effectiveness of the Standards Compliance Programme as well as the Certification Mark Programme. This facilitates the reduction of the incidents of substandard goods in the marketplace. In keeping with the Agreements/guidelines of the World Trade Organization (WTO) the Bureau will continue to make every effort to adopt international standards and where this is not possible international standards will continue to be used in the development of national standards.

Under the changed system the Industrial sector is encouraged to determine its need for standards. The Bureau of Standards is now operating in a facilitator mode. This ensures that only standards that are needed are written to ensure ownership of these standards by the Industrial and Service sector.

According to the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO), imported goods must be given the same treatment as the local goods to prevent unfair competition. The Bureau therefore had no choice but to insist that local and imported products conform to the same standards.

The Inspectorate function of the Division has three (3) areas of focus;

1. To ensure that the quality of locally manufactured goods as well as imported goods and which must be monitored to ensure their compliance with local compulsory standards and other technical regulations. The aim is to reduce the number of substandard goods entering the country and offered for sale on the Jamaican market.

2. To provide reliable and on time services to the Food Processing industry, thereby assisting them to improve the quality of their products to the level necessary for international competitiveness

3. To ensure that all weighing and measuring devices used in trade are suitable for use in trade.