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Implementing BS 25999 at Airbus

Airbus, with facilities in Filton (Bristol, England) and Broughton (North Wales) is one of the world's leading aircraft manufacturers. The company is currently working towards implementing BS 25999, initially across the UK facilities' disaster recovery operation, and then perhaps across all the UK business programmes.

"Once Facilities Management is certified, we will then carry out a review of the advantages and write a proposal to extend the certification to other areas if we feel it's useful and worthwhile," says Paul Malfatti, Airbus in the UK's business risk and assurance manager. Ultimately, Airbus is looking to explore a wider implementation across all the European sites.

Why is it important for Airbus to become certified to BS 25999?

Malfatti says that Airbus has had business continuity planning in place for a long time. However, the standard enables a common approach and galvanizes a greater level of engagement.

He adds: "BS 25999 is best practice. I would also argue it is good to have a standard which is not only robust and auditable, but also provides an approach which can be implemented by suppliers. In today's business climate, where we increasingly focus on core value-added activity, we depend more than ever on ‘risk sharing' partners and suppliers. Having a common and standardized understanding of business continuity helps to strengthen the supply chain."

To achieve certification, Airbus has designed a database around the standard. When fully populated, the database will organize live data in one coherent system, including contact lists, asset locations and supplier analysis. In turn the database will automatically generate current, BS 25999 compliant, Business Continuity Plans.