Annual BFPA Technical and Policy Standards Committee Meeting
12 Dec 2019
The annual BFPA Technical and Standards Policy, (T&SPC), Committee Meeting took place on 11th December at the BFPA offices. This committee, which serves both as a British Standard Institution and a BFPA committee, is made up of eleven Chairman of the Associations Technical and Education and Training Committees and reports both directly to the BFPA Board and to BSI for its various responsibilities. The Chairman, Jerry Hughes, opened the meeting by welcoming guests, BFPA President, Hans Waltl and from British Standards Institution: Sarah O’Neil Shaw and Philippa Younas.
The BFPA holds the external secretariat on behalf of the BSI for the management and writing, of all fluid power standards. This comprises all committees under MCE 18 and MCE 11 which have mirror committees at International Standards Organisation, (ISO), level. Our Technical Committees, which are made up from industry subject matter experts from both BFPA members and outside experts, cover all aspects of fluid power. They are responsible for writing and editing British, European and International Standards, currently over 500 standards. This meeting allows the Chairmen to discuss common issues, be brought up to date on current and forthcoming changes within the Standards Organisations, examine and co-ordinate the work of the various technical committees. As part of its responsibility for appointing Chairman to each of the committees under the T&SPC umbrella it ratified the appointment of three new Chairman and confirmed another three for a further three-year term as follows:
Reappointments for a further 3 years:
| MCE 18/1 Accumulators | Graham Miller, Consultant |
| MCE 18/4 Connectors | Jerry Hughes, Jemlyn Ltd |
| MCE 18/9 Systems | Stan Saunders, Bosch Rexroth Ltd |
New Chairmen Appointed for 3 years:
| MCE 18/3 Cylinders | Colin Gibson, SMC UK Ltd |
| MCE 18/8 Product testing | Mark Fairhurst, BHR Group |
| MCE 18/16 Hydraulic Fluids | Dr Neal Milne, LANXESS Solutions UK Ltd |
Whilst not part of the BSI committee structure the Education and Training, (E&T), Committee is a member of this group and the E&T Chairman took the opportunity to outline the new BFPA Applied Electrical and Electronic Control Competence Based Programme which it was agreed by the meeting should form an additional part of the current Competence Based Qualifications. Originally written by our E&T committee these Fluid Power Qualifications were eventually adopted into CETOP Competence Qualifications.
The T&SPC send technical experts from all its committees to both European and International meetings and in many cases chairing and taking secretarial responsibility for those committee meetings. With the current European Political changes about to take place keeping our Technical and Educational experts close to their European and other International Counterparts will take on even greater importance to ensure that the UK are not only working to the appropriate standard but are developing standards that meet our needs, for technical, health and safety and educational requirements.
The meeting closed by thanking Sarah O’Neil Shaw for her work at BSI, who held responsibility for the BFPA External Secretariat, Sarah is now moving to another role within BSI and her position will be taken up by Philippa Younas. In addition, a show of appreciation was given to Yvonne Pearman, the BFPA Standards Project Manager, for her extremely hard work throughout the year in managing over 23 committees. The Chairman presented her with a bouquet of flowers.
Jerry Hughes
T&SPC Chairman