Message from Departments and Centers of NILIM

Worldwide Check list toward the maintenance of theinfrastructure-Asset Management International Standard ISO55000HORIE Nobuyuki, Director
Water Quality Control Department（Key words） Asset Management, PC251, ISO55000, Overall optimization
1. Introduction“One of the typical cases is, whether or not there exists
a framework that the Top can make an optimization
decision anyhow when the budget was not sufficientdue to financial reason though a large scale repair wasrequired technically.” Specialists in various fields invarious countries have announced his/her opinion one
by one to the question raised by the Chairman.
First of all, what is the main task of the organizationthat manages large infrastructures? Operation of making
the Asset Management International Standard ISO55000
is now coming to the last stage.
2.

Task submitted to the infrastructure management inour country
Great east Japan earthquake disaster and gigantic
Tsunami have asked us a question how it should be thesocial risk management including infrastructure and it has
made clear again Japan’s weak point commencing withthe energy.
While the financial situation goes down, veterans thathave made a concept, created and managed it are retiring,
staff number is reduced and the facility gets older, whatgoes on more and more is the situation necessitated tomeet complicated social requirements, global address andspeed-up.
2. Current of global infrastructure management
As for the infrastructure business in various fields,
various management methods and management entities
have been implemented in respective countries in theworld as trial due to difficulty in finance and so on andthere have been also implemented bold trials and errors inorder to promote the service more effectively. In the 80s,
USA have got to schematic maintenance management
after having passed through the “devastated America,”
England has practiced the Sucherism such asprivatization and New Zealand and Australia haveadopted the new public management NPM that has

introduced the civilian method and the like. By country
and field, experiences of various entities have beencollected and discussions have been made so as to make acommon index on how to implement management. Somecountries have further continued discussion bycross-fields to make a common index on the essential
items to recognize what should be done by theinfrastructure management organization first of all.
Typical case is the PAS55 issued by the British Standards
Institution (BSI), which is more and more applied
globally.
On 2009, based on the above, England has made a
proposition to establish a new international standard
called “Asset Management (AM)” to the ISO. After
having had the London preparative meeting on June 2010,draft making committee ISO/PC251 has started underapproval of the ISO Board of Directors and first assembly
was held in Melbourne on March 2011. Experts ofvarious fields and titles have joined there from a dozen ofcountries and organizations in the world, and from Japan,
as the Asset Management discussion had started alreadyin another ISO committee (water and sewage field), threemembers such as the Professor SAWAI Katsunori of theKyoto university, MIZUTANI Tetsuya of the AssetManagement Strategy Department of Sendai city and I
myself have joined. As the result of the big discussion in
the first round five days, it was decided to make a draft of
the International Standard ISO55000 series to be issued
in three years to regulate what should be done aiming at
whatever infrastructure management organizationregardless of public or private. In the airplane of coming
back, we three members have made a sigh “ It’s awful,
we can’t deal with at all!” emerged not knowing what tosay.
Toward the fourth assembly in Prague on May 2005,
some dozens of members continue integrated discussions
by Working Group every time to deal with opinions
submitted by respective countries. Through the Work
Draft WD, Committee Draft CD, opinions from

respective countries to the Draft of International Standard
DIS are settled in the fifth assembly in Calgary from 29
April to 3 May, and through the definitive vote andpreparation period in respective countries, it is scheduled
to make effective the Standard in 2013 spring. To thepresent, roughly 50 experts in various fields in 20
countries have brought in their experiences, madediscussions during twenty days only in the meetings,
worked out, written the draft once, twice and erased everytime. AS for the standard for the judge to certify it, DIS
was fixed, after a big discussion, in the CASCO/WG39
first round Geneva assembly at the end of February.
（Member of Japan: HORIE）
3.

Outline of the Asset Management InternationalStandard“Asset” mentioned here means, commencing with theinfrastructure resource, human resource, money,
information, that is to say, various properties that theorganization is able to have aree included. Whole actionof the organization to realize the value of the asset iscalled as the “Asset Management (AM),” through that theorganization make a balance of the cost, risk and benefit
fairly well. For that purpose, it is required to establish theAM target, policy and strategy plan along theorganization target and needs of various related parties,
then make a decision from both aspects of the technology
and finance so as to practice this plan effectively and domonitoring in order to improve continuously on also
controlling the related risk. And deciding factor is theleadership and office culture.
Combination of various factors in order to establish thepolicy, target and process is called as the “Managementsystem (AMS)” by which the organization implementsinteractive operations. Not a simple information system,
but a combination of the organization structure, function,responsibility, operation process, planning andmanagement and so on.
The whole body is composed of three standards asdescribed below; ISO55001 is the one that should be
absolutely practiced at least to achieve effective AMS,
and 02 is that description.
・55000 ”Outline, definition”: １ Scope of application, 2Rule, 3 Definition and reference・ 55001”Requirements”: 1 Scope of application, 2Reference standards, 3 Definition, 4 Organization
status recognition (Needs of interested parties, AMsystem), 5 Leadership (Responsibility, policy,target), 6 Plan (Risk and occasion) 7 Execution
support system (Various management resource,information), 8 Business practice, 9. Results
evaluation, 10 Continuous improvement andreferential documents
・55002 “Guideline for application” (Description)
Note that the risk management shall basically follow
the ISO31000 Risk Management.
4.

After having joined the draft making
I have so many things to make a sigh about fromexperiences to have engaged in the management andrenovation in several official entities in Japan after having
joined in the committees and WG making operation since
the first round Melbourne assembly.
To meet various situations, whole states of its own
facility and organization are correctly recognized
everyday? Action and information in respective divisions
are functioning all together? Is the plan backed up by thefinancial and technical strength? Is the top-down
operation functioning to the task that needs swift decisionand practice? (Doesn’t it take too much time to continue
discussion and do arrangement for everything?) Is theaddress policy determined to needs of every related party
respectively?
Stock management can be achieved only when there
was the management of the whole organization to realizeit.
While various restrictions become much more harderin the drastic change of the circumstance, what is requiredfor the leadership to swiftly make the overall optimizationis that the role sharing that the responsibility is clear aswell as the constant framework review based on theinternal and external audit, evaluation and results aredaily practiced.
Sendai city has first recognized the utility andsignificance of the asset management from the Australiansurvey to review the long-term investment several years
ago, it has soon assembled a dedicated group by fivemembers so as to begin introductive operation. It has
taken a fresh look at the operation and constructed theinformation support system. At the time of the large
earthquake disaster, it has displayed and shared various
data of a channel made available by one mouse click on
the GIS, which has brought an extraordinary effect on thedisaster injury survey and emergency action on receiving
the support team from foreign cities, together with theconcept sharing through discussions with respective
segments that were made for the introduction. I myself
had, in the midst of dealing with the guerrilla heavy raindisaster, explosion disaster, road collapse and fare raise,an acute feeling for the necessity of making themanagement policy of the department that has made clear
the risk management, information and publicity strategy
and long-term finance plan from the way of thinking, notbut stop and think every time. In such an aspect, I
consider this time standard as just the essence of whatshould be done including the above and think that various
discussions based on experiences in respective countries
are a very hard study for me, always troubled with theEnglish wall.
5.

To finish
Sorrowful accident has triggered the practice of overall
check on facilities by various management entities. And
next, what is needed is the one step advanced objective
check on the entire management method. Begin with asimple check first, and with the speedy improvement onwhatever that can be realized earlier, toward the overallcheck.
And finally hoped for is a day that Japan presents
various successful cases at the next generation PC251 andreflects them on the global standards.
(From 2011 ISO/PC251 Japan Judge Member)