Maintenance standards and regulations

French manufacturers have realized that standardization serves their interests in intra-European trade. So, keen to ensure that the French and European standards system takes their interests into account and that the rules of the game are genuinely respected, they have mobilized to ensure that a new philosophy does not call into question the body of French standards which have helped to structure contractual relations, training and CMMS software products in particular. While playing a leading role on CEN's technical committees, they have also led the French standards commission (AFNOR) in a process of reflection which has resulted in the maintenance standards system as we know it today. This article takes stock of this strategy and, at the time of writing (August 2010), provides an inventory of the most important existing and forthcoming texts in the field of technical system maintenance.