standards

BIFM is currently leading an international project, managed by the British Standards Institute and chaired by the previous Chairman Stan Mitchell, to develop standard terms and contracts in facilities management.

The development of standards in Facilities Management dates back to 2004 when an initiative was launched within Europe to gather together those who were striving across many European countries to develop Facilities Management as a professional discipline and the recognition that to do so we had to start to develop standards against which such recognition could leverage.

BIFM has been at the forefront of this initiative from the beginning, through our involvement within the BSI Facilities Management Committee and representation at a European level within the Technical Committee.

The UK has also contributed to the work that goes on behind the scenes through providing the Convenor to lead the development of the BS EN 15221-2 standard and currently with the recently commissioned work associated with the new Benchmark Standard.

BSI

Within the standards world there is a hierarchy that exists and is as follows:

International - International Standards Organisation (ISO)

Regional - The European Committee for Standardisation (CEN)

National - The British Standards Institute (BSI)

European Standards

In 2006 the first two standards in Facilities Management ‘BS EN 15221-1 Terms and Definitions’ and ‘BS EN 15221-2 Guidance on How to prepare Facility Management Agreements’ were published following over two years of development and authorisation via the European Standards processes.

These standards have been accepted by 30 participating countries across Europe.

Current Developments

Currently the second phase of the development of European standards is coming to a conclusion, in the development of them at least, and will be completed this year with publishing occurring in 2011.

The current standards under development were established as a prerequisite to the development of a benchmark standard. The four standards under development are as follows:

15221-3 Quality in Facilities Management

15221-4 Taxonomy of Facilities Management

15221-5 Facilities Management Processes

15221-6 Facilities Management Space Measurement

For information on the European FM standards project go to http://www.cenorm.be

Members have the opportunity to comment on a new standard:

Title: Procurement: Facility related services

Scope: The standard will provide users with guidance on the procurement of the broad range of services that are required to either support the needs of the physical assets making up the facility or those services that support the needs of the users and occupiers of the facility. The document would relate to new and existing buildings.

Purpose: To establish a common and standardised approach to the way that the facility related service requirement is determined and specified, recognising the impact that occupants and service users have on the facility itself and their demand for the individual services.

The link to view the proposal details and comment is: http://standardsproposals.bsigroup.com/Proposal/View/301