You’ve decided that you’re going to maximize your usage of energy by setting up an Energy Management System (EnMS). Now, how do you go about following up to confirm that you’re hitting your goals? Remember, for quality the mantra is PDCA – Plan, Do, Check, Act. The ISO 50001, “Energy management systems – Requirements with guidance for use,” has provided you with the basis for both planning and doing. And the ISO 50002, “Energy audits – Requirements with guidance for use,” has shown you how to check. But how do you evaluate the folks who’ll be doing the checking? The new ISO 50003, “Energy management systems – Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of energy management systems,” provides the answers.
Of course, if your organization does energy audits for others, you’ll need to review this standard to confirm that your staff and processes are in compliance. But if your organization is going to enter into an agreement with a certification body for auditing, you’ll also want to take a look at this new document.
How would ISO 50003 be helpful to you? You’ll get an overview of the requirements for the audit planning process, the initial certification audit, the on-site audit, the duration of the audits and multi-site sampling. You’ll also get a definition of the auditor competence, which will be helpful in setting your own expectations.
Some other helpful features of ISO 50003 are a discussion of the various stages of an EnMS audit in Clause 5. There’s a table with information on the required EnMS knowledge expectations for the auditor in Clause 6. Also, Table 2 reviews “technical areas,” a way to classify organizations undergoing auditing to provide a sample of the types of energy uses that are typical for each. An example would be Heavy Industry, which can include chemical plants, oil refining, semiconductors, ship-building, and so on.
The three Annexes supply additional information (and requirements) for the duration of the EnMS audit, multi-site sampling, and the topic of continual improvement for energy performance. An eight item bibliography rounds out the publication.
Now you’re interested in EnMS and the auditing process, and you know you need to get the standards in the series. What’s the next step? You’ll need to choose an authorized dealer in order to make your purchase. And for this, you’ll find Document Center Inc. to be your best choice. We’ve been providing standards from our Silicon Valley location since 1982 and have been on the web since 1993.
Go to the Document Center webstore at www.document-center.com. You can choose to have ISO standards in paper format or for pdf download. Prefer multi-user licensing? Ask our staff about our Standards Online subscription service. You can reach them by phone (650-591-7600), fax (650-591-7617) or email (info@document-center.com). And you’ll find we have numerous services that will help you comply with the documentation requirements of any certification system you’ve got in place. Make us your Standards Experts!
