In my last blog, I referenced an ASTN article on the value of standards. In this blog, I want to discuss whether or not a standard has merit. Merit is defined as “worth or excellence”. Unfortunately, a standard does not have worth unless it has been applied to a business and produces some benefit; then it has merit.
One of the criteria in evaluating standards is whether or not it will deliver reproducible results. This is the reason that standard cannot be vague or obscure. If they are, then they become subjective – based on the company’s or consultant’s perspective on the standard. This is the main reason why any standard must be prescriptive enough to avoid a “rubber stamp” approach. This would allow anyone who wants to be certified under a certain standard to be certified whether they met the “intent” of the standard or not.
One can consider some of the variances within the inspections performed under the OSHA standards. If the particular part of an OSHA standard is open to interpretation, one inspector will write a citation, where another will simply pass over an infraction. This has been common experience in many companies and is particularly evident when the OSHA inspectors have different backgrounds.
How does this apply to the proposed ISO-55000 standard? If this proposed standard is to be of any value to the maintenance and reliability community, it must be prescriptive enough to eliminate most of the subjectivity. One can only imagine the variances in certification if a registrar had a TPM background vs. a RCM background. How much subjectivity would there be if the proposed standard was vague or obscure?
It is only hoped that the proposed ISO-55000 has sufficient detail to make it useful to the asset management community; especially the maintenance and reliability organizations.
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