The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) is celebrating the publication of two new International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards impacting the facilities management industry.

In April 2017, ISO, an independent, non-governmental organization and developer of international voluntary consensus standards, published two new standards: ISO 41011:2017, Facility management – Vocabulary; and ISO 41012:2017, Facility management – Guidance on strategic sourcing and the development of agreements.

Recently, the increasing cost of fragmentation within the industry has emphasised the need for a unified global FM community. As the largest global FM body, IFMA has pursued the development and support of global FM unification through ISO standard-making and productive global partnership, such as the IFMA-RICS collaboration. Since 2012, IFMA has served as administrator on behalf of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG), playing an important role in the development of global FM standards.

“The ability of FM practitioners to speak the same professional language around the world is the foundation of a robust global community that will be better situated to tackle the challenges of the future,” said Jim Whittaker, past chair of IFMA and leader of ANSI TAG, in a press release. “For an industry as diverse as FM, developing standards can be a daunting task, but the reward for success is worth the effort.”

ISO standards can be found online at www.iso.org. The organization plans to publish a third technical report, ISO 41013, Facility management – Scope, key concepts and benefits, later this year.