What is the status of BN industry standards?

1. Industry standards (BN) are one of the types of technical normative documents which used to be developed by bodies beyond the control of the Polish Committee for Standardization, i.e. by entrepreneurs, academia, ministries etc. They were standards applied by companies in a specific industry. Pursuant to Article 28 of the Standardization Act of 12 September 2002 (consolidated version: Journal of Laws of 2015, item 1483), the PKN ceased to maintain the body of industry standards as of the effective date of the Act. The then-existing bodies of standards – Industry Standards (BN) and Military Industry Standards (WBN) – were transferred by the PKN to the Central Archives of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych).

2. Pursuant to Article 16(1) of the National Archive Resources and Archives Act of 14 July 1983 (Journal of Laws of 2016, item 1506), each citizen and organizational unit has the right to consult archive resources, which are made available free of charge for research, cultural, technological and economic purposes.

3. Industrial Standards published before the effective date of the Standardization Act are available at the Central Archive of Modern Records and may be applied voluntarily. Nevertheless, it has to be emphasized that they may contain outdated data. It is safer to rely on a Polish Standard, whose technical data is up to date.