ISO 55001 Certification Scheme ready

While ISO 55001 has been around for almost two years, organizations in the Netherlands still cannot be officially certified* to this standard. The Certification Scheme, changes all that.

On November 6, 2015 is the final draft of the Certification Scheme for ISO 55001 was approved by the Commission of Asset Management Experts of NEN.

The Certification Scheme states what certification bodies must meet with and how they shall carry out ISO 55001 audits. Certification bodies that meet the Certification Scheme can be accredited by the Dutch Accreditation Council to be allowed to issue ISO 55001 certificates.

In months to come the ISO 55001 Certification Scheme will be validated in practice. It is expected that in the end of February 2016 the first validation data are available. After that, the Accreditation Council can start the acceptance and accreditation procedures for certification bodies.

The ISO 55001 Asset Management Certification Scheme includes among other things the following:

• Compliance with ISO/IEC 17021 and ISO/IEC-TS 17021-5 in particular. The latter sets requirements for audit team qualifications. These must have sufficient knowledge in the field of asset management.
• How to deal with the different roles that are often distinguished within asset management: asset owner, asset manager and service provider.
• The required audit time. This depends on the number of employees of the organization, the complexity of the assets and social risk in the event of asset failure. For an initial audit, the required time can vary from 6 to 30 man-days.
• Requirements for the reporting. For example, it must be ordered according to the theme areas listed in the Certification Scheme: leadership, line of sight, risk management, compliance management, process management, improvement management, assurance and compliance and information management.

AssetPouwer follows and influences the developments in the field of asset management and ISO 55000. We are members of the Platform include "Central Certification Scheme for ISO 55001".

* At present there are organizations that have an ISO 55001 certificate. This concerns certificates that are issued without accreditation.