On Tuesday 1 March 2011, the Asset Management Council ISO Asset Management Standards Advisory Committee convened in Melbourne to review additional material on the official ISO draft documents, and to hear a debrief by Peter Kohler on the International Standards Organisation Project Committee (ISO/PC 251 Asset Management) meeting being held in that week.

Also at the meeting was the Chair of the Australian Mirror Committee (MB19) Melinda Hodkiewicz and the CEO of the Institute of Asset Management in the UK, Mr. David McKeown.

Chaired by Wilbur Carey and with more than 16 members, the Asset Management Standards Advisory Committee role is to assist the Asset Management Council to develop contributions to and ideas for, the Australian Mirror Committee, known as MB19 by Standards Australia. MB19 comments, when collated from all the members, are then referred to ISO Project Committee 251 Asset Management (ISO PC251).

The three ISO draft documents are to be known as:

• ISO 55000 Asset management - Overview, principles and terminology
• ISO 55001 Asset management – Management system requirements; and
• ISO 55002 Asset management – Application guidelines

Key points from the minutes of the AM Council meeting that may be useful include:

• Scalability is an important issue, noting that the Standard will apply to all industries at all levels of maturity;
• The Standard should address all facets of the asset life cycle but in particular, place emphasis upon the Demand Management (the start of the cycle).
• A fourth tier of document on tools and techniques might also be considered as part of the asset management standard suite; and
• That references to existing standards (such as IEC, ISO and others) needs to be included.

Further information on the International Standards Organisation Project Committee (ISO/PC 251 Asset Management) meeting will be published on the Asset Management Council website by mid March 2011.