New ISO standard for facility management just published

Wednesday, 25 April 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

www.iso.org: If the future of work is all about employee experience, what about the workplace? The need to keep on top of the ever-changing trends in how and where people work makes facility management an essential aspect of organisational success… which is why new international guidelines have just been published.

Increasingly complex, the global facility management (FM) market will be worth $ 1 trillion by 2025 – and that’s just that which is outsourced).

Concerned with the management, operation and maintenance of an organisation’s facilities, FM is a discipline that needs to balance the rapidly changing needs and demands of the various stakeholders that it serves with effective, safe and sustainable business needs. It affects the health and wellbeing of all those who come in contact with an organisation and covers a wide range of areas including occupancy costs (the second-highest overhead in almost every organisation), use of space, maintenance, security, cleanliness, the environment and more.

ISO 41001, Facility management – Management systems – Requirements with guidance for use, has just been published to help FM teams achieve optimum efficiency. Drawing on international best practice, the new management system standard constitutes a benchmark for developing and driving an effective strategic, tactical and operational FM regime. It will also assist organisations seeking to outsource FM, as those providers who are able to demonstrate compliance with the standard will provide them with an assurance regarding their approach and processes.

Stanley Mitchell, Chair of ISO/TC 267, Facility management, the ISO technical committee that developed the standard, said ISO 41001 will assist organisations in a number of ways by establishing a common approach and a set of processes that can be referred to around the world.

“Every company, big or small, has some element of facility management. It is a complex discipline that directly affects everyone, as it is all about the spaces that we occupy and how those spaces meet the needs of the people who use them on a daily basis.

“ISO 41001 is the first standard of its kind for facility management and has the potential to make a real difference to organisations by improving workforce health and safety, reducing their impact on the environment and making considerable cost savings and efficiencies.”

The secretariat of ISO/TC 267 is held by BSI, ISO’s member for the UK. ISO 41001 is available from your national ISO member or through the ISO Store.