TC251 held its 11th plenary meeting by webinar on 19 May 2022
ISO/TC 251 had held its 10th meeting in November 2021 by webinar, due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Regrettably, due to the continuation of the pandemic, the 11th meeting also had to be held by webinar. The meeting was well attended by 50 delegates from 17 national standards bodies and 2 committees in liaison.
During the plenary meeting:
a) The TC251 Chair, Rhys Davies, reported that:
- The Chair’s Advisory Group (CAG) had met in March to review progress in the TC’s activities and to prepare for the plenary meeting
- The TC’s Strategic Business Plan had been revised and approved. It had since been published on ISO’s website.
- He still had key concerns about the language currently being used in the TC to describe e.g. physical versus non-physical, tangible versus intangible, or financial versus non-financial assets, and that they should be addressed further.
- In light of the improving COVID pandemic situation, ISO had agreed that TCs could now start to hold hybrid meetings (i.e. combined physical and virtual meetings)
- Progress in the ISO/TMB’s task groups for ESGs, Risk, and Strategic Business Plans had been noted.
- A CAG ad hoc group on the placement of terms and definitions had completed its activity. The CAG agreed to recommend that the terms and definitions from Annex SL would be included in ISO 55001 (as now required by ISO), with all other terms and definitions (as well as those from Annex SL) being included in ISO 55000.
b) The TC251 Committee Manager, reported that:
- The membership of the TC now stands at 35 P-members, 20 O-members and 34 Liaisons.
- Since the November meeting, committee drafts of ISO 55000, ISO 55001, ISO 55011, ISO 55012 and ISO 55013 had been circulated for review and comment. The comments were now being processed by the working groups.
c) The Convenor of WG3 Communications, Boudewijn Neijens, reported that:
- There was a noticeable drop-off in the number of visits being made to the TC’s website (https://committee.iso.org/home/tc251)
- This is also reflected in a reduced number of applications for inclusion in the list of “Known Certified Organization”
- While Newsletters had been produced, additional new material needed to be posted on the website to encourage users to return to it
- Case studies are the main reason for many users in coming to the website. The WG would be grateful for the assistance of the TC’s members and their national mirror committee members in producing new case studies
- As the work in revising ISO 55000 and ISO 55001 moves forward, this is expected to generate additional interest and articles for the website; however, the other projects also need to provide information as they progress.
In going forward, the WG intended:
- Progressing a paper on SDGs that is currently under review with WG7
- Planning to release the next Newsletter soon, based on CAG and Plenary information
- Increasing its work with mirror committees
- Developing local expanded KCO lists
- Identifying a “liaison” with every mirror committee to relay information
- Developing local databases of useful AM bodies & sources per country
- Having a presence at some of the in-person asset management conferences again
- Distributing monthly messages via the TC
- Working on the next batch of case studies
d) The Convenor of WG4 Product Improvement and Revision of ISO 55000, Jack Dempsey, reported that:
- The WG had been continuing its activities in maintaining the TC’s Knowledge Base, Product Improvement Facilitation, Feedback collation and Liaison management, in addition to the work on the revision of ISO 55000.
- There had been no new product improvement proposals (PIPs) submitted since the last plenary.
- It had produced a Committee Draft (CD) of ISO 55000, which had been circulated to the TC’s members for review.
- The WG had been holding fortnightly meetings to progress the revision of ISO 55000,.
- There were a number of conflicting views on the “Principles”, that needed resolution for the revision of ISO 55000.
In going forward the WG would:
- Maintain its Knowledge Base, Product improvement, Feedback and Liaison Management activities.
- Review the comments received on the CD.
- Hold a joint meeting with WG6 to align the revisions of ISO 55000 and 55001
- Work on the development of a 2nd Committee Draft for circulation for ballot to the TC’s members.
e) The Convenor of WG5 Finance and asset management alignment, Johan Paulsson reported that:
- The WG has been holding regular fortnightly meetings, with good participation
- A draft had been completed for an annex to ISO/TS 55010 to provide tactical guidance related to the development, management and alignment of asset registers.
In going forward
- The annex would be finalised as part of the revision of the TS
- The WG would actively engage with WG4 and WG6 to examine the aspects of ISO/TS 55010 that could be taken forward into the revisions of ISO 55000 and ISO 55001
- It would seek to align the release of its Draft Technical Specification with the DISs of ISO 55000 and ISO 55001
- It would act as the focus point for the financial aspects of asset management within TC 251.
f) The Convenor of WG6 Revision of ISO 55001, Martin Kerr, reported that:
- Following work on a number of themes, the WG had produced a Committee Draft of ISO 55001 which had been circulated to the TC’s members for review and commenting on.
In going forward:
- The comments received on the CD would be reviewed as an input into the revision of ISO 55001
- There were a number of comments directed at the new definition of “risk” that had been included in the CD which needed to be resolved
- A coordination meeting would be held with WG4 to check on alignment between the revisions of ISO 55000 and ISO 55001
- A 2nd Committee Draft would then be prepared for circulation for ballot to the TC’s members
e) The Deputy Convenor of WG7 Development of ISO 55011, Kerry Brown, reported that:
- The WG had held biweekly meetings, with additional task group meetings as necessary
- The WG had applied its template for the inclusion of case studies into the standard
- It had prepared a 2nd CD which had been circulated to the TC’s members for review
In going forward
- The WG would review the comments received on the 2nd CD
- It was looking for additional case studies to include in the standard
- The WG was on track to deliver a 3rd Committee Draft for ballot by the members of TC 251
g) The Convenor of WG 8 Development of ISO 55012, Gao Ang, reported that:
- There had been good participation at the WG’s recent meetings
- The WG had used the comments received from its members on its Working Draft to prepare a CD for circulation to the TC’s members for review.
In going forward
- The comments received on the CD would be reviewed and a 2nd Committee Draft prepared for circulation to the TC’s members for ballot.
h) The Convenor of WG 9 Development of ISO 55013, Yang Xiao-feng, reported that:
- In line with its revised Design Specification, a Working Draft had been produced and circulated to the WG’s members.
- A number of teams within the WG had tackled different parts of the draft and the comments received on the Working Draft, which had enabled a CD to be produced and be circulated to the TC’s member for review
In going forward:
- The comments received on the CD would be reviewed and a 2nd Committee Draft prepared for circulation to the TC’s members for ballot.
i) The Convenor of the Spanish Translation Task Force, Maria-Aurora Agullo, reported that:
- It had been active in translating all of the TC’s published standards, the website’s pages and website materials, as well as the Newsletters.
In going forward,
- the STTF would continue to be active in providing translations, as and when the TC produced standards or new website materials.
j) The TC’s Committee Manager reported on the recent meeting of the ISO/TMB/TAG13 “Joint Technical Coordination Group on Management System Standards (JTCG), and advised that:
- The JTCG had met in March 2022, where it had reviewed the work of its Task Force (TF15) on the development of a future strategy to improve the alignment of ISO management system standards.
- The TC251 representatives on JTCG/TF15 had attended several of its meetings, but had been extremely disappointed by its focus on administrative and classification matters, instead of strategic issues, so had resigned. The Secretariat was now looking for replacement representatives.
- The JTCG had called for an extraordinary meeting to be held in June, to consider the addition of text concerning climate change to the Annex SL “Harmonized Structure”, following the adoption of the London Declaration on climate change at ISO’s last General Assembly.
During discussions of the resolutions at the end of the meeting, some members indicated that being expected to respond to five Committee Drafts simultaneously had put too high a burden on their mirror committee resources, and that they needed to focus primarily on the drafts for ISO 55000 and ISO 55001. Consequently, it was agreed to delay the circulation of the 2nd CDs for ISO 55011, ISO 55012 and ISO 55013 until a month after the circulations of the 2nd CDs for ISO 55000 and ISO 55001.
With six projects now in progress, there is increasing need to coordinate the activities of the WGs. In the hope that physical meetings might be able to be held again towards the end of 2022, which would facilitate this, the TC would be pleased to receive offers from members to host future meetings. In the meantime, the TC agreed to hold a future plenary, around November 2022.
In closing the meeting, the Chair stated that he considered that the committee had made very good progress in all its activities, before thanking all the members for their contributions.
Following the meeting, an online social event was held using Wonder software and was well received by the participants. Our thanks to Boudewijn Neijens for setting this up and for managing the event.