By Jim Fitch
Machinery Lubrication Magazine
This past year I’ve been spending a lot of time studying the possibilities of ISO 55000, especially its long-term impact on the lubrication field. I was a bit skeptical at first. Now I view it as a game-changer to machinery asset management and the field of reliability in general. If you haven’t heard of ISO 55000, this might be a great time to get acquainted – very acquainted.
ISO 55000 is an international standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), created and approved by representatives from 10 countries, 50 organizations and 15 different industries. The foundational elements of ISO 55000 originate from the British Standards Institution (BSI) standard PAS 55. It provides an overarching framework for using modern principles of asset management to achieve a wide range of precisely defined organizational objectives.
An asset, by definition, is anything that has future value. Plant machinery and equipment are most commonly referred to as assets. However, people are assets too, as is software, intellectual property (e.g., patents and trademarks), knowledge/skills, goodwill and so much more. In a nutshell, asset management can probably be best summed up by the following sentences excerpted from ISO 55000. Certain words are italicized to emphasize concepts and themes that I will further develop in this and future columns.