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Standard life
FACILITY MANAGEMENT STANDARDS
OVERARCHING STANDARD FOR FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
Benefits of BS EN ISO 41001 ●It is based on the ISO high level structure (HLS) that brings a common framework to all management systems. Aligning different management system standards brings greater efficiency and effectiveness. That’s why BS EN ISO 41001 is commonly integrated with asset management BS EN ISO 55001, health and safety BS EN ISO 45001 and environment management BS EN ISO 14001.
●It is the international standard for a facilities management system. It provides a framework to develop, implement and maintain effective facilities management across different sectors worldwide.
●It helps you recognise the scope of your responsibilities and create a management structure, with appropriate resources to fulfil the needs of your stakeholder.
●It raises the profile of facilities management as a profession and recognises the value it delivers as part of your organisation’s strategic direction.
●In response to the growing demand for scalable facilities management services, it helps facilities management providers ensure consistency when increasing their capability on a global scale.
●It provides a systematic approach, which requires you to continually review your service delivery and assets to deliver effective operations, minimise unnecessary cost and derive tangible value for your business.
RECOMMENDED STANDARD
BS EN ISO 41001:2018
FACILITY MANAGEMENT.
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS.
REQUIREMENTS WITH GUIDANCE FOR USE.
Non-industry specific quality management standard
BS EN ISO 9001:2015 Quality management systems. Requirements
STANDARD
Nick Blake recently took over as chair of the British Standards Institute’s FM steering committee, FMW/1. And as economic pressures see the C-suite’s growing acceptance of FM’s value, the adoption of a standards-based approach to facilities service and project management is back in the spotlight. Martin Read reports
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PRE-DESIGN STANDARDS
FACILITY MANAGEMENT STANDARDS ACQUIRE SPACE BS EN ISO 41011:2018 Facility management. Vocabulary. BS EN ISO 41012:2018 Facility management. Guidance on strategic sourcing and developing agreements. BS EN ISO 41014:2020 Facility management. Development of facility management strategy.
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DESIGN STANDARDS DESIGN SPACE BS 8536:2022 Design, manufacture and construction for operability. Code of practice. BS EN ISO 41018:2022 Facility management. Development of a facility management policy.
Aforthcoming systematic review of The British Standards Institute (BSI)’s ISO 41001 series of FM standards is due to commence in April this year, offering an opportunity for the sector to give its feedback . To which end, and to bring potential users up to speed with its FM offerings, the BSI has published an infographic detailing what’s available; turn the page to see it, or see the link to the online version at the end of this piece. In one sense, the review is itself an advertisement for the standards, showcasing how a regular reassessment is built in to ensure ongoing applicability. Not that such a review should be needed to point out why now is a good time to buy into what standards can bring – because times are changing, and with them the status of FM within organisations.
“I think FM is getting more ‘ear time’,” says Nick Blake, newly in post as chair of the BSI’s FMW/1 group steering committee. “The voices of FMs are starting to be heard a bit more. We’re not just the oily people in the basement or on the roofs anymore;
LIFE facilities managers are now taking their seats on organisational boards. We are in a new era, and this is a really great time to capitalise on it and do what we can do to support what really is a key industry.”
New year, new standards focus
2023 could prove an important year for ISO 41001 FM standards. For Blake, there are signs that the historic focus on newbuild capital investment projects at the expense of efficiency-focused operational projects has altered significantly, and with it any previous ambivalence to the use of standards. Bluntly, there is more willingness to accept, and curiosity about the process surrounding life cycle costing, an associated demand for a more structured approach to facilities decision-making and, by extension, the potential for standards to
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CONSTRUCTION STANDARDS CONSTRUCT SPACE BS 8536:2022 Design, manufacture and construction for operability. Code of practice. BS 8572:2018 Procurement of facility-related services. Code of practice.
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OCCUPATION STANDARDS
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PRE-OCCUPATION STANDARDS FIT OUT SPACE BS 8572:2018 Procurement of facility-related services. Code of practice. BS EN 15221:2011 Facility management. Area and space measurement in facility management. BS EN ISO 41018:2022 Facility management. Development of a facility management policy. MOVE INTO SPACE BS 8892:2014 Transition management of facility-related services. Code of Practice.
inform and underpin performance. By way of example, Blake talks of the use in construction of polypipe over traditional copper piping; a saving at the specification stage perhaps, but a potential maintenance costs nightmare after only a few years of operation. Similar might be said about air handler unit specification – “you may save a few pennies now, only to cost a whole load in operations later”.
Organisations rocked by the pandemic, aware of the fragile economic sustainability of their estates and now tasked with new environmental sustainability targets, are beginning to take a far more considered view of such arguments. And what follows is that the use of ISO standards – as a way of introducing a greater consistency into such decision-making – becomes a practical consideration.
“The fact is that we are now much more aware of ventilation, for example, and the impact it has on our health,” says Blake. “So these standards can help people to understand that this short-term decisionmaking is exactly that. You need to be focusing on that long-term approach.”
It’s a mentality change, says Blake, with the government’s welcome adoption of the phrase ‘whole life asset performance’ important in getting the message across.
Blake believes the BSI’s FM standards can typically get an organisation “70% of the way to where they need to be in fixing their problems. They really are a way of sharing best practice in as accessible a way as possible”.
Now an associate director at Gardiner & Theobald, Blake was previously principal FM consultant for BSRIA, where the
MANAGE SPACE BS 8210:2020 Facilities maintenance management. Code of practice.
BS 8544:2013 Guide for life cycle costing of maintenance during the in use phases of buildings.
BS 8587:2012 Guide to facility information management.
BS EN 15221-3:2011 Facility Management. Guidance on quality in Facility Management.
BS EN 15221-4:2011 Facility management. Taxonomy, classification and structures in facility management.
BS EN 15221-5:2011 Facility management. Guidance on facility management processes.
PD ISO/IEC 17021-11:2018 Conformity assessment. Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems. Competence requirements for auditing and certification of facility management (FM) management systems.
REVIEW SPACE BS 8210:2020 Facilities maintenance management. Code of practice.
BS 8544:2013 Guide for life cycle costing of maintenance during the in use phases of buildings.
BS EN 15221-7:2012 Facility management. Guidelines for Performance Benchmarking.
LEAVING SPACE BS 8892:2014 Transition management of facilityrelated services. Code of Practice.
FACILITIES MANAGEMENT STANDARDS IN DEVELOPMENT
BS EN 15221-9 Facility Management – Principles and processes.
BS EN ISO 41015 Facility management – Influencing organisational behaviours for improved facility outcomes.
PD CEN ISO/TR 41016 Technology in facility management – Scope, key concepts and benefits.
BS EN ISO 41017 Facility management – Guidance on emergency management of epidemic prevention in the workplace.
PD CEN ISO/TR 41019 Facility management – The role of FM in sustainability and resilience.
ISO/TR 41030 Facility management – Existing performance management in facility management organisations – State of the industry to the FM standards in development.
government’s Soft Landings agenda was an important area of process development. He believes what’s needed to go with a culture of standards use within the sector is the type of openness between parties that has been difficult to cultivate in the past.
“We in our industry can be too good at siloing our information, and solving that is 80% culture and 20% process. It’s about an openness to sharing, be it about a mistake or a brilliant idea – that honesty and sharing and pushing everyone forwards rather than dragging everyone back.”
Standards remain ‘just’ guidance, even though some can be referenced in primary and secondary legislation.
“But being guidance, they’re optional. So what I’d like to do is raise the awareness that they are a good option,” says Blake. And an option that can be cheaper to deploy than other proprietary standards, says Blake, who is keen to emphasise the applicability of the existing 14000 series and the pipeline of further new standards to be published in the future.
“There are digital standards being put together on things like machine readability, data analytics and how to deal with the vast amount of information that can bring about,” says Blake.
Zero tolerance
Blake’s predecessor as FMW1 chair, Stan Mitchell, had expressed frustration that the government was not itself promoting the value of BSI standards. For Blake, Net Zero and the energy crisis is helping to bring the concept of a standards-approach to both building and operation into the open.
“What’s happened in the last few months is that people are starting to look for ways of quantifying it [Net Zero],” says Blake. And refurbishment of buildings, as a way of tamping down levels of embodied IWFM is a nominating carbon, offers another organisation for the opportunity. Ultimately, BSI’s FMW(1) Committ ee. Blake’s message is that the You can find details many challenges of 2023 could of all of the ISO FM standards by scanning have a standards solution. the QR code above. “If you are looking to make a difference – and everyone is tightening purse strings at the moment – it genuinely is a really good way to go about that. You don’t have to make a big investment. There are other assessments you could go through, but just following the standard, and the guidance that’s in there, will get you to where everyone else is.”
