ISO 55001 requires businesses to achieve the following:
- Understand the competencies expected of persons working in asset management and assess and update these regularly.
- Ensure that those persons have the necessary skills.
- Understand any existing competency gaps and have plans and processes in place to bridge such gaps.
- Keep enough records to indicate that the necessary competencies are held.
What Asset Management Skills are Required?
There are two alternative sources for a starting point to help you define the competencies required for each function. The Institute of Asset Management (IAM) Competence Framework is the first of them.
The structure is built on seven core Asset Management "roles," namely:
- Policy formulation
- Strategy creation
- Asset management strategy
- Implement asset management strategies.
- Development of asset management capabilities
- Management of risks and enhancement of performance
- Asset knowledge administration
Because the IAM competence standards are still very generic (as are the AM Council competencies to some extent), it will be vital to identify other components of competence that may be relevant to your business or organisation and ensure that these are also listed. Some of these competencies may be required to ensure compliance with externally imposed legislation or rules. In several businesses, for example, certain positions have legislative functions, and their occupants must have specified qualifications, experience, and/or pass specific examinations to comply with those statutory criteria. Here are a few examples from the Australian industry:
- It is a requirement for personnel in command of an operating mine site to be familiar with the appropriate mine safety legislation and supporting regulations, the risk management methodology, and the dangers relevant to the operation, as well as have management and leadership abilities.
- Engineers in Queensland must be Registered Professional Engineers (RPEQ) to provide competent engineering services. To become an RPEQ, you must first pass a discipline-specific competency evaluation.
- To operate a boiler, plant operators must have a licence, which needs specified competencies to be proved.
Evaluating Asset Management Expertise
At this stage, it is important to ensure that you understand what the term "competence" means. Competence is described as "the ability to do something successfully or efficiently". In other words, competency can only be shown via action. Attending a course and knowing theories and concepts does not necessarily make you competent; you are only competent when you know how to use these concepts and principles in practice and can demonstrate that you can. Attending a course and passing a theoretical exam, while an essential requirement on the path to competence, does not, in and of itself, imply competency.
Competence is defined by the four dimensions listed below:
- Task Skills are the ability to complete tasks to the appropriate standard.
- Task Management Skills - the capacity to plan and integrate a variety of tasks to reach a job outcome.
- Skills in Contingency Management - the ability to respond to abnormalities, malfunctions, and other unplanned events; and
- Job/Role Environment Skills - the ability to deal with the obligations and demands of the workplace, including teamwork.
In terms of the first of these bullet points, demonstrating competence necessitates meeting an agreed-upon benchmark standard while completing the activity. As a result, this standard must be ISO 55001 documents as thoroughly as possible. Some larger businesses have established their performance requirements for specific jobs.
In other situations, you may be required to depend on standards developed as part of an approved ISO 55001 awareness training course or certificate. Unfortunately, the IAM competency criteria do not expressly indicate the level of performance that is expected.
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