ISO 41001: Standard for Facility Management

Safety professionals examining open facility in conducting ISO 41001 facility management.

It’s estimated that the global facility management market will be worth $1 trillion by 2025.

What is Facility Management?

Facility management, as covered by ISO 41001, concerns the management, operation, and maintenance of an organization’s facilities. It affects the health and well-being of all those who come in contact with an organization and covers a wide range of areas including occupancy costs, use of space, maintenance, security, cleanliness, and the environment.

Facility management has been defined as the organizational function that integrates people, place, and process within the built environment, with the purpose of improving the quality of life of people and the productivity of the core business.

The challenge is to balance the changing needs and demands of stakeholders. Keeping pace with trends in how and where people work makes facility management an essential aspect of organizational success.

ISO 41001 Accreditation

ISO 41001, Facility management – Management systems – Requirements with guidance for use, was published in April 2018 to help facility management teams achieve optimum efficiency. The international standard draws on best practices and constitutes a benchmark for developing and driving an effective strategic, tactical, and operational facility management system. For organizations outsourcing facility management, it will help in selecting providers who can demonstrate compliance with the standard.

“Every company, big or small, has some element of facility management. It is a complex discipline that directly affects everyone, as it is all about the spaces that we occupy and how those spaces meet the needs of the people who use them on a daily basis,” Stanley Mitchell, Chair of ISO/TC 267, the ISO technical committee that developed the standard, said. “ISO 41001 is the first standard of its kind for facility management and has the potential to make a real difference to organizations by improving workforce health and safety, reducing their impact on the environment and making considerable cost savings and efficiencies.”

ANAB has developed an accreditation program for certification of organizations conforming with ISO 41001. ISO/IEC 17021-1 is the base accreditation requirement document, and relevant ANAB Accreditation Rules apply. ISO/IEC TS 17021-11, Competence requirements for auditing and certification of facility management (FM) management systems, also apply.

What is Covered By ISO 41001?

ISO 41001, which is available on the ANSI Webstore, specifies the requirements for a facility management system when an organization:

  • Wants to demonstrate effective and efficient delivery of facility management that supports the objectives of the demand organization.
  • Seeks consistency in defining and meeting the needs of interested parties and applicable requirements.
  • Aims to be sustainable in a globally competitive environment.

For more information about ANAB accreditation for ISO 41001, contact nlarrimer@anab.org.

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