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Working With BT
Generic Standards
1. Introduction
Generic Standards may form part of the tenderer selection process and be appended to Invitations to Tender and form part of any subsequent contract.The purpose of Generic Standards (GS's) is to help ensure that the goods or services purchased by BT meet:
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Statutory requirements for safety and environmental matters
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Requirements unique to the BT business and those of its customers
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Performance requirements over their entire life cycle
The Standards are reviewed at least annually to take account of legislative and regulatory changes.
2. General
The general format of Generic Standards (apart from GS13 and GS18 and GS19 -see notes below) is:
BT will state what it wants and leave you the supplier to declare the degree to which you are able to meet these Requirements.
Wherever possible, GS's are designed to be universally applicable with International or European specifications quoted rather than the British Standard equivalents.
Buying teams may send selected GS's and request receipt of your response electronically.
To determine the applicability of the Generic Standards to a contract our buying teams will consider a wide range of issues. These will include:
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Nature of the goods - new / old / simple / complex / proprietary,
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Their impact on BT's business,
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Their impact on BT's customers,
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Safety, reliability and environmental considerations,
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Past performance and so on.
3. Notes
GS13 Environmental Impact Standard
GS13: Environmental Impact Standard is used to drive forward environmental improvement with in contract suppliers by giving a series of questions with categorised responses that can be directly compared and scored. This will help identify if there are areas for improvement.
GS18 Sourcing With Human Dignity Standard
BT's Sourcing with Human Dignity Initiative establishes the aspiration that working conditions in our supply chain should meet standards based on international guidelines. Suppliers should seek to work towards the Sourcing with Human Dignity aspirations, collaborating with BT to meet this goal where required.
For more information go to the Suppliers GS18 homepage.
GS19 Product Stewardship Standard
GS19 requests suppliers of electrical or electronic equipment to provide information on the materials content and environmental attributes of products, specifically to ensure BT can meet the requirements of the following EU Directives:
1) The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive
2) The Restriction on the use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) Directive
For more information go to GS19 Homepage
4. So how will the GS's affect you?
The "Requirements" have been written to establish the degree to which you, the supplier, are satisfied that you meet BT's requirements. You will need to demonstrate this in any Invitation to Tender response.
To each Generic Standard "Requirement" you should make a declaration of "Compliant", "Partially compliant" or "Non-compliant" as appropriate (in only a few instances will "Not applicable" be valid). A supporting statement of how you comply, or why you do not must follow this declaration. Ideally this statement should be brief, but it must contain sufficient information to support the declaration. (GS13 Environmental Impact Standard is different using a questionnaire format instead. Please see GS13 note in Section 2 above. GS18 also differs. For details see GS18 note in Section 2 above.)
Please note that a declaration of, for example, "compliant" will not of itself be considered sufficient.
If your response is accepted and becomes part of the contract then you will be expected to meet these commitments as you would with any other contractual clause.
It is hoped that this Briefing will help you to understand the Generic Standards and the philosophy on which they are based, but if you need further advice please contact the buyer concerned.
