Managing Assets in the Context of Asset Management

AM Foundational Thinking

This installment in the Foundational Thinking miniseries highlights ISO Technical Committee 251’s most popular article – Managing Assets in the Context of Asset Management. This article was written to clarify a common misconception about the purpose of asset management. This purpose is made clear in ISO 55000 that states: “Asset management does not focus on the asset itself, but on the value that the asset can provide to the organization.”

This concept is key to understanding what ISO 55000 standards say about asset management. The statement is clear, but the challenge has been in how the application of asset management has been interpreted, that is: is it about asset life cycle management or about value realized from and through assets?

In response to misconceptions and related debates, ISO TC 251 sought to provide clarification in the subject article. This article was published in 2017 and it took over a year to write it. Development of the article included many drafts and lengthy deb…