What is ISO 55001 good for?

 After four years of the ISO 55001 Asset Management Standard publication is time to review what it is good for and who could require it.

 I'm sure this standard is really useful to improve the assets management in all types and sizes of organization, although the own standard indicates it is intended to be used for physical assets in particular but it could also be suitable to all assets types, without any specification to financial, accounting or technical requirements for specific asset types.

 It means that not only tangible assets, as machines, real state, movable, grounds, inventories of products and raw materials, even agricultural and livestock assets; but also intangible assets, like patents, licenses, concessions, operating processes, know-how, software, and databases, provided they have potential or actual value to an organization.

 Standard indicates it is intended to be used for all involved to establish, implement, maintain and improve the asset management system; the involved in developing activities related in asset management and services providers, and both internal and external parties involved in assessing the capacity of the organization to fulfill the legal, regulations and contractual requirements and with the own requirements of the organization.

 To this should be added that this Standard is aligned with the SL Annex so it could be integrated with the other Management Systems in the organization enabling to design multiple procedures.

 However, the key question for an organization could be: Who could ask me to fulfill the ISO 55001 Standard?

 With or without certification, in addition to the organization managers, the fulfilling of the Standard could be asked by:

• Regulatory bodies, as a requirement to operate in regulated sectors, it is already a requirement in some sectors.

• Investors, need to know the actual conditions of an organization, mainly, those that use the value investment methodology.

• Customers, that need to ensure an optimum product supply.

• Financial institutions, that need to know the actual conditions of an organization and preview the future conditions, to provide financial services with greater security.

• Owners, need to assess and maintain the organization actual value, beyond the book value and enhance its reputation as a responsible corporate.

• Purchasers, that require to assess and maintain in the future the value of the organization and it is particularly interesting for those specialized in troubled organizations because introducing an Asset Management System provides value to an organization.