by Brianna Crandall — June 12, 2015—A new international standard for facilities management has been formally approved to proceed into development by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) following a poll of its 159 member organizations earlier this year. ISO 41000 will be a “Management System Standard” for Facilities Management.
As a strategic tool and set of guidelines, the standard will set out an accredited structure and framework as well as formal organizational processes along with the need for key skills and competencies. The standard will provide appropriate guidance in a similar manner as the Quality, Occupational Safety and Health, and Environmental Management System Standards that already exist.
Additional countries have confirmed their participation in developing the standard along with the existing 20 countries that already are participating members of the ISO TC 267 Facilities Management Committee. Participation is open to all countries that are members of ISO. It is expected that the standard will take about three years to define and ratify. The first meeting took place last week in Glasgow, U.K.
British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) representative Stan Mitchell is also chair of the British Standards Institute (BSI) FMW/1 facilities management committee and will chair the ISO TC 267 Committee, which will oversee the development of the standard. The BIFM interviewed Stan Mitchell to explore what the new standard will mean for facilities management; the interview video is available on the BIFM Web site.
Mitchell commented, “With its own Management System Standard, FM will finally emerge as the professional discipline it is. FM practitioners require a rare mix of specialist technical skills, rounded business understanding, and general management expertise. We are now in a position to provide consistency for the profession internationally and to provide a framework for standards on a worldwide scale.”
Gareth Tancred, CEO, BIFM, added, “ISO 41000 is a significant step forward for the FM industry and will deepen its commitment to continuous assessment and improvement. The new standard will provide global consistency to the delivery of FM services and help to harmonize their specification and management. The economic and social benefits of this new standard will be considerable in terms of the raising of standards of our facilities and services globally ensuring we reach even higher levels of efficiency.”
Separately, two technical standards for FM are in their final stages of development: ISO 18480-1 and ISO 18480-2 will provide an international framework for FM terms and conditions, strategic sourcing, and the development of supplier agreements between service providers and their customers.
