Swing Corporation obtains ISO 55001 preliminary certificate

Swing Corporation (President: Shigeo Mizutani, Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo) is pleased to announce that it obtained preliminary certification under the ISO55001, an international standard for asset management systems ("AMS") for the first time as a private business operator in Japan.

We were selected by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) as the pioneering private sector organization to cooperate in the ISO 55001 AMS standard introduction process, solicitation for which was announced by the MLIT in early July 2013. In March 11, 2014, after engaging in the activities to obtain the certification for about half a year, we became the first private-sector corporation in Japan to receive the ISO 55001 trial certification, for which our sewage maintenance and management operation and our initiatives for the management system (ISO 9001, ISO 14001) were highly evaluated.

The ISO 55001 certification is extendible to our nationwide maintenance and management operations. We will continue on our proactive activities for maintaining the ISO 55001 certification, with a view to having the certification extended to other sewage facility maintenance and management operation sites as well as our water supply facility maintenance and management operation sites.

The ISO 55001 preliminary certification is considered very significant in expanding our business areas, because the AMS is supposedly needed in promoting public-private collaborative projects in the field of water infrastructure.

Moreover, as the ISO 55001 standard becomes widely adopted on a global scale, the certification may well be a prerequisite in bidding on water infrastructure projects. Our approach going forward will also take our overseas initiative into consideration.

■About ISO 55001

As the aging infrastructure draws great social attention to the need for proper repair and maintenance measures, ongoing maintenance and renewal of sewage facilities built in the high economic growth era has also become an urgent issue to address. As if to go with such background, development of the ISO 55001 started in 2009 as the international AMS standard and was officially issued on January 10, 2014.
This standard covers sewage, roads, bridges, railroads, and other social infrastructure areas such as energy and communications, and comprises requirements to ensure continued performance of initial functions of facilities through their planned and efficient management, including management of funds, manpower and information. Thus, we expect ISO 55001 to be adopted in countries around the world.