In the last number of years, much of the discussion surrounding asset management has been influenced by the emergence of formal PAS-55 and ISO-5000 standards. PAS-55, the publicly available asset management specification, was drafted in a collaborative, multi-country effort in an attempt to create an international reference standard for implementing an "asset management system" for organizations that depended on the performance of the physical assets they owned. Many practitioners, although excited by the concept, have found ploughing through the arcane language and non-intuitive layout of PAS-55 difficult.

More recently, there has been a global collaborative effort to rewrite the standard in a more accessible format and publish it as a suite of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, which is on track for 2014. ISO-55000 is a suite of three standards that are entitled: asset management overview, 55001 asset management system requirements and 55002 guidelines for the application of 55001. The standards are "applicable to organizations where physical assets are a key or critical factor in achieving business objectives and effective service delivery." (ISO-55000)

The goals of putting an asset management system in place are clear and hold common value. These are to:

1. Drive performance of the assets;
2. Cover the whole lifecycle;
3. Be in alignment with business goals;
4. Simultaneously manage the risks.

This article does not overview either of the standards, but argues that they are inevitably going to be part of the asset management landscape of the future. The goal of the new set of asset management standards is to provide the practitioner with an accepted structure around which an asset management system can be conformably implemented.

Given this background, I suggest the Top 10 reasons why the new suite of asset management standards should be seriously and strategically considered.

Asset management enables the realization of value from holding the assets. (ISO-55000)

One could, of course, develop one's own framework and structure, but why not take advantage of the combined thinking and intellectual capacity of some of the most experienced practitioners and professionals who have put together the standards? Their combined efforts represent a significant investment in standardizing a body of thought and knowledge that has accumulated over our combined experience since the Industrial Revolution.

Click on figure to download PDF of Top 10 Reasons

Grahame Fogel is an Asset Management Consultant with experience covering 25 years around the world. He has been associated with many of the recognized benchmark programs, such as U.S. Steel, Pfeizer Pharmaceuticals, PJB Power, Boeing, and others. He has a depth of experience in the power, pharmaceutical, mining and chemical process industries. More recently, he has been on the forefront of implementing PAS-55.