Communiqué on the ISO Preliminary meeting on Asset Management

The meeting had been called to resolve scoping issues relating to a new work item proposal (NWIP) from the UK, on the topic of Asset Management.

The meeting had been called to resolve scoping issues relating to a new work item proposal (NWIP) from the UK, on the topic of Asset Management. (Regrettably due to an erupting volcano in Iceland, and the resulting prohibition on flights, the meeting had to be re-scheduled from its planned dates in April 2010).

The scoping issues had meant that while the project had been “approved” by the NWIP ballot, it had only been agreed at the “Preliminary” stage of development, requiring these issues to be addressed, before the ISO Technical Management Board (ISO/TMB) could consider moving the project to the “Approved Work Item” stage.

The meeting was held at the Grange Langham Court Hotel in central London, a building with an unusual façade which had once been a home for nurses.

The meeting was well attended with delegates from:

Australia (5) Japan (2)

Austria (1) Netherlands (3)

Canada (1) Portugal (1)

Czech Republic (1) Sweden (3)

Finland (2) UK (2, plus 3 observers)

France (3) USA (3, by webinar).

Germany (3)

In addition, there was representation of the following committees:

CEN/TC 348 Facility Management
IEC/TC 56 Dependability management
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 7 Information technology – Software and Systems Engineering
ISO/TC 59/SC14 Building Construction – Design Life
ISO/TC 176 Quality Management and Quality Assurance
ISO/TC 223 Societal Security
ISO/TC 224 Service activities relating to drinking water supply systems and wastewater systems - Quality criteria of the service and performance indicators

The Chairman, Mr Rhys Davies, defined the purpose of the meeting as being to:

review the responses to the NWIP
review the scope of the project
make recommendations to the ISO/TMB on what should happen with the NWIP

The UK gave a presentation on the history of BSI PAS 55 and its reasons for promoting this work to ISO as the basis of the NWIP.

The meeting reviewed the results of the NWIP and examined the associated member body comments.

The Secretary gave a presentation on the work of both the ISO/TMB Strategic Advisory Group on Management System Standards (SAG-MSS) and the Technical Advisory Group 13 – Joint Technical Coordination Group for Management System Standards (JTCG). This included a presentation of a proposed “High Level Structure” and “identical text” from the JTCG, which all future ISO “requirements” management system standards are likely to be required to follow.

A number of presentations were received from:

Australia – on the results of its national committee discussions on the NWIP
Australia – on the International Infrastructure Management Manual
IEC/TC 56 – on its “toolbox” series of standards to support dependability management (note dependability includes the concepts of maintenance and maintenance support)
Netherlands – on their national Technical Agreement NTA8120, and its similarities to the NWIP.
CEN/TC348 – on their standard EN 15221 and the similarities between Facility Management and Asset Management
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 7 – on their standards ISO/IEC 19770-1for software asset management and ISO/IEC 20001 for IT Services management
Portugal – on infrastructure asset management, especially for water systems assets
USA – on their ASTM series of Property Management standards
USA – on their assessment of the similarities and differences between their Property management standards and the NWIP
Finland – on asset management for manufacturing situations
ISO/TC 59/SC 14 - on their ISO 15686 standard on Buildings and Constructed Assets

The discussions following these presentations led to agreement on the following:

The scope of the work should be expanded so that it covers a much wider range of assets, and should not be limited by references to “physical” assets
The scope should make it clear that the standard would not address “financial” (i.e. personal wealth) asset management or that the standard would not address “human resource” asset management in any great detail.
The scope should not be written to exclude any particular sector of industry
Recognition needs to be given in the standard to the differences in particular types of assets, e.g. long-life buried assets versus short-life easy access assets, or “systems” of assets versus individual items
The standard should be written so that the organization first defines the types of assets it is dealing with, following on from its own strategic planning.
The only formal “Normative reference” that should be included in the standard should be to the proposed “Overview, principles and terminology” Part (to cross-reference the terminology). No normative reference to any sector document should be included.
The “Overview, principles and terminology” Part should be used to give a broad introduction to the field of asset management, and may give links to other appropriate reference works, such as the IIMM from Australia.
The standard should focus on giving details of “what to do” not on “how to do it”.
The standard may need to adopt differing perspectives, e.g. for asset owners, for those who manage the use of the asset (e.g. facility managers), and those who use the asset (clients).
The standard should adopt a “business centric” approach (i.e. how the organization uses an asset) rather than an “asset centric” view (seeking optimization of the individual asset)
The proposed “Requirements” Part should be re-drafted to follow the JTCG High level Structure and Identical text
It would be useful to develop some form of capability maturity model of assessment for the “Requirements” Part
The standard should emphasize that “self-declaration” of conformity to the “Requirements” Part is an available option for organizations
Member bodies should be encouraged to send practicing asset managers and representatives of asset owners (particularly from the manufacturing sector) as their delegates to any future meetings. The BSI PAS 55 has been successful specifically because it was written by such people.

The meeting examined the scope statements of the three proposed Part standards, and made relatively minor revisions to them, in light of the proceeding discussions.

The meeting agreed five recommendations to the ISO/TMB:

for the establishment of an independent “Project Committee” to take this work forward
the project should be based on the original NWIP for a standard in 3 Parts, with their Scopes as amended by the meeting
The “Requirements” Part should follow the recommendations of the ISO/TMB/TAG13-JTCG.
A number of liaisons with other technical committees or external liaison bodies should be established for this project
Given the strategic approach that will be taken in the work, any project resulting from the work of the ISO/TMB/SAG-MSS should be made aware of this activity.

The Secretariat agreed to enquire if ISO/TMB would be willing to review these recommendations by correspondence, rather than waiting until its next meeting in September 2010 for a decision on whether this project could now proceed.

Depending upon ISO/TMB approval of this project, a tentative offer from Australia to host the next meeting was accepted.

A brief exercise was conducted to align the content titles of the “Requirements” Part into the JTCG High Level Structure.

The Chairman thanked our hosts for the meeting (the British Standards Institution, BSI) for the excellent facilities that had been provided, and thanked their sponsors (Atkins International) for their hospitality.

He also thanked the delegates for their excellent co-operation, which he felt had led to such a successful meeting. He looked forward to hearing that ISO/TMB had approved the project, and to seeing the delegates at the next meeting.

Charles Corrie
For the BSI Secretariat of the ISO Preliminary meeting on Asset management