by Brianna Crandall — April 5, 2017 — The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) joins facilities management (FM) advocates around the world in celebrating the publication of two International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards impacting the industry.
ISO — an independent, non-governmental organization and developer of international voluntary consensus standards — published two standards in April 2017: ISO 41011:2017, Facility management — Vocabulary; and ISO 41012:2017, Facility management — Guidance on strategic sourcing and the development of agreements.
Recently, the increasing cost of fragmentation within the industry has underscored the need for a unified global FM community. IFMA, said to be the largest global FM body, has pursued the development and support of that effort through ISO standard-making and productive global partnerships like the landmark IFMA-RICS collaboration. Since 2012, IFMA has served as administrator on behalf of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG), playing a vital role in the development of global FM standards.
Jim Whittaker, past chair of IFMA, who leads the effort for the U.S. ANSI TAG, pointed out:
The ability of FM practitioners to speak the same professional language around the world is the foundation of a robust global community that will be better situated to tackle the challenges of the future. For an industry as diverse as FM, developing standards can be a daunting task, but the reward for success is worth the effort. On behalf of IFMA and the FM industry, I’d like to thank everyone who helped make these standards a reality, including Stan Mitchell for his vision and leadership as the ISO Technical Committee chair and Paul Stadlöder, Jay Drew and Olav Egil Sæbøe, who served as working group convenors.
ISO standards are available for purchase on the ISO Standards Web page. The organization expects to publish a third technical report — ISO 41013, Facility management – Scope, key concepts and benefits — later in 2017.
