Align with ISO 55001

ISO 55000 is the international standard for Asset Management, developed by the the International Organisation for Standardsation (ISO) and was published in January 2014. For more information on this standard, please read our article “What is ISO 55000?”

PAS 55 is a Publically Available Specification issued by the British Standards Institute. As such, it does not carry the same level of influence as a full standard issued by the International Organisation for Standardsation (ISO). For more information on PAS 55, please read our article What is PAS 55?. In contrast, ISO 55000 is being developed by the the International Organisation for Standardsation (ISO) and will become the international standard for Asset Management on its release in late 2013 or early 2014. ISO 55000 will be one of ISO’s series of Management Standards, and will sit alongside its other management standards, including ISO 9000 for Quality Management, ISO 31000 for Risk Management, ISO 18000 for Occupational Health and Safety, ISO 14000 for Environmental Management and others. As such, it will carry a similar structure, look and feel to those other ISO Management standards, which is quite different to the current structure of PAS 55.

As ISO 55000 has just been released, there is currently no assessment tool available for assessing compliance with ISO 55000. The closest tool that we are aware of, is the Companion Guide to ISO 55000 available from the Asset Management Council of Australia, and does provide some guidance, at a very high level, that will assist you in identifying gaps. It is available for purchase from the AM Council. We understand that the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) is updating its PAS55 Assessment Methodology (PAM) Tool to permit this to also be used to perform ISO 55000 gap assessments. This is currently free to download by paying IAM members. Assetivity also applies an assessment tool for its clients. If you are interested in having a gap assessment conducted, please contact us.

Following release of ISO 55000, the British Standards Institute announced that it will withdraw PAS 55 in January 2015, 12 months after the publication of ISO 55000. During the intervening period, PAS 55 will be available for purchase, and organisations can continue to be certified as compliant with PAS 55. , We believe that PAS 55 is a useful document, however, and we hope that it will be available in some form (perhaps from the IAM itself) following its withdrawal by the British Standards Institute. Clearly, over time, ISO 55000 will become the reference document of choice.

Certification against PAS 55 is undertaken by independent certifying bodies. Many (but not all) of these are endorsed by the Institute of Asset Management as Endorsed Assessors (Assetivity is an IAM Endorsed Assessor). Certification against PAS 55 is not monitored or accredited by either the British Standards Institute or the International Standards Organisation, and so we do not see the release of ISO 55000 as having any impact on organisations that either are, or wish to be, certified to PAS 55. However we believe that, over time, following release of ISO 55000, ISO 55000 will become the preferred standard against which organisations and their key stakeholders (including regulators, insurance companies, customers and shareholders) will wish to be assessed.

Unlike PAS 55 (where there are no formal requirements in place for assessors/certification bodies, other than the voluntary IAM Endorsed Assessor scheme), organisations that wish to issue certificates of compliance against the requirements of ISO 55000 will be required to meet all the requirements of ISO and its associated bodies, including meeting the requirements of ISO 17021. This will also include meeting the specific competency requirements for assessing Asset Management Systems (which includes relevant knowledge and experience in Asset Management) contained within Part 5 of this standard, once this is published. At present, we believe that there are no certifying bodies which are approved by ISO for certifying against ISO 55000. Assetivity intends to become an approved certifying body for ISO 55000, just as soon as this becomes possible. For more information regarding ISO 55000 certification, please read our article Your Guide to ISO 55000 Certification.

There are many benefits to aligning your Asset Management system with the requirements of ISO 55000, whether you end up formally certifying your Asset Management System to ISO 55000 or not. These include:

• Greater alignment between your organisation’s overall strategy and its Strategic Asset Management plans
• More formal consideration of, and improved optimisation of the Costs, Benefits and Risks associated with Physical Assets
• More formal consideration of, and improved optimisation of short-term and longer term decisions relating to Physical Assets
• Greater alignment and cooperation between all the organisational functions contributing to Asset Performance, including Marketing, Engineering, Operations, Maintenance, Finance and Supply
• Demonstrable rigour and discipline to meet the requirements and expectations of technical and economic regulators
• Demonstrable rigour and discipline to meet the requirements and expectations of customers and shareholders
• Lower costs, greater revenues and other benefits, lower risks