Increase the efficiency of your supply chain procurement process by using PAS-91.
Summary
In this article you will learn about:
- what PAS 91 is and when it is used.
- the benefits of implimenting the standards for both buyers and suppliers.
- what is included within the standard.
- our solution to reduce your pre-qualification approval process to 2 hours.
In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about the construction industry standard pre-qualification questionnaire and how to use it to reduce supply chain risk.
What is PAS-91?
Where did the standard originate?
Published in 2010 by the BSI (British Standards Institute), the Publicly Available Specification number 91 (PAS-91) defined a set of standardised questions to be used by a principal contractor to determine the suitability of a supplier during project tendering.
What is included within the standards?
The PAS-91 questions are categorised into modules. With these modules, buyers can determine the suitability of suppliers based on their competence across up to 8 key areas of risk management. Please head to section 6 for more information on the different modules.
When is the standard used?
PAS-91 can be used for a variety of different projects since these modules allow principal contractors to focus on project-specific requirements. In the construction industry for example, projects that are required to comply with CDM 2015 regulations can use PAS-91 modules to demonstrate and ensure compliance with these regulations.
Does PAS-91 take into account my ISO 45001, 9001, 14001 accreditations?
PAS-91 takes into account parts of both ISO 9001 (Quality Management System) accreditation, or ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System). Some pre-qualification systems, including our system Samson, will allow a user who is compliant with the accreditations to skip related questions making the process faster.
Unfortunately, when it comes to ISO 45001 (Health and Safety Management System), PAS-91 does not take this into account. However, the our system Samson does – this means that supply chain applicants can experience a doubly quick PQQ experience since the ISO 45001 accreditation allows them to skip over large swaths of the H&S section of the PAS-91 questionnaire.
Who is PAS-91 for?
This standard set of questions is for both ends of the supply chain and provides benefits across the board. Both the buyer and supplier can reap the benefits of employing PAS-91:
Buyers Benefits
Consistency: a standardised question set allows for easy comparison of suppliers and quality, insightful answers from all potential suppliers.
Time saving: reduces the amount of resources required to determine which suppliers meet the buyers’ requirements.
Risk reduction: risk to buyer is strongly reduced by PAS-91 since any potential issues with a supplier are identified long before they step on site.
Quality: More competition for jobs overseen by the principal contractor results in finding higher quality suppliers.
Consistency: a standardised question set allows for easy comparison of suppliers and quality, insightful answers from all potential suppliers.
Time saving: reduced amount of resource required to determine which suppliers meet the buyers’ requirements.
Risk reduction: risk to buyer is strongly reduces since any potential issues with a supplier are identified long before they step on site.
Quality: More competition for jobs overseen by the principal contractor results in finding higher quality suppliers.
Supplier Benefits
Save time: as there are the same questions every tim, suppliers ca simply copy over answers from a previous PQQ (pre-qualification questionnaire).
More jobs: the time saved allows suppliers to fill out more pre-qualification applications in the same amount of time.
Confidence: answering the same questions every time allows the supplier to refine their answers leaving them confident they have represented their capabilities well.
Time saving: same questions every time – simply copy over answers from a previous PQQ (pre-qualification questionnaire).
Get more jobs: the time saved allows suppliers to fill out more pre-qualification applications in the same amount of time.
Confidence: answering the same questions every time allows the supplier to refine their answers leaving them confident they have represented their capabilities well.
PAS-91 has undergone several revisions since its conception and now is considered to be applicable beyond the construction industry and extends into facilities through building information management and modelling.
Why PAS-91?
The construction industry had for many years struggled with lost time during pre-qualification – a lot of unnecessary effort and cost was expended by both buyers and suppliers. The BSI along with the UK government and other stakeholders sought to create a universal set of questions that were common to all construction procurement and would prompt unambiguous responses and increase potential for recognition by all current pre-qualification schemes.
What areas does PAS-91 Cover?
PAS-91 is comprised of four core and four optional modules. The core modules contain questions that are to be asked in every situation. The optional modules concern areas of supplier capability that buyers frequently want or need to know about. This is often dependent on the type of job that needs doing or the type of organisation overseeing it.
Core module 1
Supplier Identity, key roles and contact information.
Core module 2
Financial Information
Core module 3
Business and Professional Standing
Core module 4
Health and Safety: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 1
Equal Opportunity and Diversity: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 2
Environmental Management: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 3
Quality Management: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 4
Building Information Modelling (BIM): Policy and Capability
Core module 1
Supplier Identity, key roles and contact information.
Core module 2
Financial Information
Core module 3
Business and Professional Standing
Core module 4
Health and Safety: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 1
Equal Opportunity and Diversity: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 2
Environmental Management: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 3
Quality Management: Policy and Capability
Optional Module 4
Building Information Modelling (BIM): Policy and Capability
Free Pas-91 Checklist
We have created a simple checklist based on the British PAS-91 standard to help you to build a pre-qualification questionnaire that will both reduce supply chain risk and ensure you're procuring quality suppliers.
Press the button below to get your free copy.
What is the purpose of Pas 91?
Key objectives when PAS 91 was published was to reduce duplicate processes, unnecessary paperwork and excessive costs across the construction industry that had posed an issue for too long. PAS 91 also aims to raise the bar for supply chain standards. PAS 91 did not aim to introduce any new questions, simply standardise those that were already being asked by buyers in the industry.
Another aim of PAS 91 was to increase the likelihood that the pre-qualification process was gladly participated in by suppliers of all sizes. Previously, there was reluctance from especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in the pre-qualification process.
The continuous updating of PAS 91 to bring it inline with construction industry and health and safety executive (HSE) guidelines ensures that the standard will provide benefits to an ever wider group of businesses in an increasingly widening selection of industries.
Is PAS 91 compulsory?
HSE and SSIP guidance does not make the use of PAS-91 compulsory, but buyers and suppliers alike realise the benefit provided to them by engagement with the standard and working with pre-qualification questionnaires designed around the PAS-91 framework.
Our Solution is Samson
All 8 modules of PAS-91 are available to use for issue by a buyer, but they are not just limited to these eight. Buyers may add or remove any other modules to suit their pre-qualifying requirements on their Samson portal. These makes Samson flexible, bespoke and extendable beyond just construction and facilities. Bear in mind that the first 4 modules of PAS-91 are simply to do with the standing and competence of the supplier, and the requirement for this information is industry-agnostic.
Using Samson, buyers, procurement officers, principal contractors can pre-qualify their supply chain to the latest amended edition of PAS 91:2013+A1:2017 using the web-app provided by Liaison Systems.
Samson can also provide a pre-construction questionnaire available to all buyers. A pre-construction questionnaire covers details specific to a project, such as those responsible for first aid, or procurement of a confined-space specialist – have site operatives received advice on this? As an example.
With Samson the buyer has full control over which suppliers are approved. This gives the buyer full control over the speed of the process making Samsons pre-qualification process fast! A supplier can complete the questionnaire and be approved in 1-2 hours whereas, with our competitors systems it can take weeks.
