Who’s using the ISO 55000 standards in New Zealand?
Introduction
Our infrastructure sector is facing significant challenges now and over the coming decades. Key factors include historical infrastructure deficit, changing demographics and growth, greater customer expectations of infrastructure quality and performance, and the need to improve resilience, including to climate change impacts.
Te Waihanga New Zealand Infrastructure Commission has found that a ‘business-as-usual’ approach to addressing these challenges would require that current spending on infrastructure almost double, from 5.5% of GDP to 9.6% of GDP over a thirty year period. The Commission argues that while increased investment is required, improved models for infrastructure financing, and efficiency in the use of funding is needed to reduce the affordability impact to the economy and consumers.
These statements in the New Zealand Infrastructure Strategy are welcome. All too often in the media and in infrastructure organisations the focus of measurement and reporting is on how much money is being spent, and not on what value is being realised from that investment.
We contend that a high leverage opportunity to enhance the value realised from investment is to improve the capability of our infrastructure organisations in asset management. To do this, we need to take advantage of the global good practices that have emerged in this discipline over the past two decades.
The development and increasing utilisation of the ISO 55000 standards has been a key driver of asset management improvement internationally.
ISO 55000 standards
First published in 2014, the ISO 55000 standards represent global consensus on how asset management can be implemented to ensure that organisations and their stakeholders realise full value from assets. The standards build on the asset management DNA of BSI PAS 55, and the quality systems DNA of the ISO management systems standards to promote the establishment and continual improvement of an asset management system.
In contrast to how the term ‘asset management system’ is used in many New Zealand infrastructure and physical asset-intensive organisations, in the ISO 55000 standards this does not refer to the information systems used to support asset management, such as enterprise asset management systems (EAMS), and geospatial information systems (GIS). While these are critical enablers of the asset management system, information systems in isolation will not improve the asset management capability of an organisation.
The asset management system should instead be understood quite literally as the management system or operating model for asset management. In ISO parlance ‘the set of interrelated or interacting elements of an organization to establish policies and objectives and processes to achieve those objectives.’
A key implication of this definition is that the asset management contributions of all parts of the infrastructure organisation must be understood and aligned, after all, achieving asset management outcomes is inherently cross-functional and multidisciplinary.
The ISO 55001 standard defines the requirements for an asset management system, which cover organisational context, leadership, asset management planning, support functions, life cycle operations, performance evaluation, and continual improvement. These seven clauses contain the requirements an organisation must meet in order to become ISO 55001 certified.
The ISO 55000 standards provide a structured and consistent way to think about asset management and a benchmark that New Zealand infrastructure organisations should be using to inform the continual improvement of their asset management capability.
Over 330 organisations in 47 countries and across 20 sectors are now certified to ISO 55001.
Figure 1: Global ISO 55001 Certifications by Sector, August 2023
Note: This data is sourced from TC251’s list of Known Certified Organisations which is self-reported and therefore likely to under reports certifications. For example, of New Zealand’s ten certifications, only four are included on this list.
Who’s using the ISO 55000 standards in New Zealand?
It is not straightforward to answer this question comprehensively because infrastructure organisations are not required to publicly disclose such information. We consider three perspectives:
ISO 55001 certifications - which organisations from which sectors are certified to the standard?
Electricity distribution sector - in publicly disclosed asset management plans, who is discussing the standards and how they are using them?
Local government sector - in publicly disclosed infrastructure strategies and other physical asset-related strategies and plans, who is discussing the standards and how they are using them?
We may broaden this analysis in the future and are open to suggestions on other avenues of enquiry.
New Zealand ISO 55001 Certifications
New Zealand now has at least ten organisations certified to ISO 55001 according to the JAS-ANZ and UKAS registers, and TC251’s list of Known Certified Organizations.
Being certified to ISO 55001 means these organisations have established an asset management system that conforms to the requirements of the standard, and the system and its implementation has been externally audited by a conformity assessment body (CAB).
The certified organisations come from the following sectors:
Electricity distribution
Electricity generation
Facilities management
Defence
Transport
New Zealand’s first certification was achieved in 2018, and eight have been achieved since 2021, suggesting that uptake is accelerating, albeit from a low base.
Figure 2: New Zealand ISO 55001 Certifications by Sector, August 2023
Electricity Distribution
Since 2016 we have been monitoring the uptake of the ISO 55000 standards in the electricity distribution sector through the review of disclosed asset management plans. We’ve updated our analysis to cover the recently disclosed AMPs for 2023. Across the 26 electricity distribution businesses whose asset management plans we reviewed:
70% of electricity distributors intend to align their asset management system with ISO 55001
22% of electricity distributors intend to become certified to ISO 55001
Four electricity distributors are now certified to ISO 55001 up from one in 2020.
Figure 3: Adoption of ISO 55001 by Electricity Distributors, August 2023
Local Government
The ISO 55000 standards are seldom mentioned in the infrastructure strategies and asset management plans of more than 70 New Zealand local government organisations. While these documents often include strategies to improve the organisation’s asset management system, these typically reference the maturity guidance provided in the International Infrastructure Management Manual (IIMM).
Alignment to ISO 55001 is being pursued in a small number of large council-controlled organisations (CCOs).
Conclusion
We sought to answer the question “who’s using the ISO 55000 standards in New Zealand?” We found that ten organisations have achieved certification to ISO 55001 across five different sectors. The largest number of certifications is in the electricity distribution sector, which suggests that engaging with this sector would be of value to organisations seeking to align to the standards or become certifed themselves.
Interest in the ISO 55000 standards in the electricity distribution sector has increased since 2016, with the majority of electricity distributors intending to align their asset management systems with the requirements of ISO 55001.
The electricity distribution sector is regulated by the Commerce Commission which requires distributors to regularly self-assess against the Asset Management Maturity Assessment Tool (AMMAT). The AMMAT is a subset of the requirements of PAS 55, which is the predecessor of the ISO 55000 standards. It is likely that the use of AMMAT has influenced the uptake of ISO 55001 in the sector.
In local government, the ISO 55000 standards have received limited attention to date, although several large CCOs report that they are seeking to align their asset management systems with ISO 55001.
Development of asset management in New Zealand’s local government sector has been heavily influenced by the infrastructure specific guidance in the International Infrastructure Management Manual (IIMM). The 6th Edition of the IIMM creates alignment to the ISO 55000 standards, and includes guidance on strategic asset management planning, alignment between financial and non-financial functions, and case studies of the application of ISO 55001 in an infrastructure asset management context. This recent guidance may mean that increased attention is paid to the ISO 55000 standards in the local government sector in coming years.
The IIMM contains rich guidance on how asset management can be applied in the infrastructure sector, but does not have the quality systems heritage of the ISO 55000 standards. This may be where the ISO 55000 standards can add value to enhance asset management maturity in this sector.