How restless do you want to sleep?

Assets determine a company’s value. They include buildings, machinery, equipment, test equipment, and infrastructure, as well as knowledge, patents, data, software, and employees. Although asset management is required by all management system standards, the asset management process—as defined, for example, by the ISO 55000 series or DIN EN 60300 series—is still largely unfamiliar within companies. This was certainly not light reading at our 12th IMS Breakfast, which we once again hosted in cooperation with TÜV Rheinland Akademie GmbH.

Our expert, Prof. Dr. Stefan Kornhuber, vividly explained—from both a theoretical and practical perspective—the advantages of systematic asset management, including in the context of reliable plant design and plant management, Risk management, and the integration of management systems. “The level of regulation within a company always depends on … ‘how restlessly you want to sleep,’” said Prof. Kornhuber, summarizing the necessity of operational asset management. Good asset management offers companies great potential for the efficient strategic use of resources and, as we concluded at the end, actually constitutes the foundation—rather than the icing on the cake—of an (integrated) management system.

The next IMS breakfast meeting will take place on January 17, 2019. There, we will address the revision of the auditing guideline, ISO 19011, as well as typical pitfalls in internal and external auditing.

Text: Johannes Schaumlöffel (Nim18), Jana Brauweiler