DHS To Adopt ASIS National Preparedness Standard -- Security Today

DHS To Adopt ASIS National Preparedness Standard

Oct 19, 2009

ASIS International recently announced that the Department of Homeland Security has selected the ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience American National Standard as one of three sets of standards to be adopted as a national preparedness standard for private-sector entities as part of the DHS PS-Prep program.

DHS is calling for a 30-day public comment period. Individuals wishing to submit comments may obtain a comment form and instructions for submission online at http://www.regulations.gov, in Docket ID: FEMA-2008-0017.

PS-Prep seeks to raise the level of private-sector preparedness through DHS adoption and promotion of preparedness standards and provides a mechanism for a private sector entity to receive certification that it is in conformity with one or more of the adopted standards. The ANSI/ASIS SPC.1-2009 American National Standard titled “Organizational Resilience: Security, Preparedness, and Continuity Management Systems–Requirements with Guidance for Use” provides a holistic approach for organizations to cost-effectively improve their resilience performance and increase preparedness.

The Standard takes an enterprise-wide view of risk management, enabling an organization to develop a comprehensive strategy to prevent when possible, prepare for, mitigate, respond to and recover from a disruptive incident. It is the only ANSI Standard under consideration for the PS-Prep program that is 100 percent compatible with existing ISO management system standards, enabling a cost-saving integrated application with other internationally recognized ISO management system standards. The ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard can be used by any organization wishing to enhance its resilience and preparedness.

“The importance of resilience management cannot be overstated,” said ASIS President Michael R. Cummings, CPP. “Organizations need to be able to adapt to an ever-changing environment. The ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard provides organizations with a flexible tool they can use to tailor their preparedness needs to meet their business needs.

“ASIS International is proud that DHS intends to adopt its American National Standard for Organization Resilience to help businesses effectively address potential disruptions. Regardless of a business’ decision to participate in the PS-Prep certification process, it can use the ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard to better manage its risks.”

This generic Standard is applicable to all sizes and types of organizations, from public to private, small to multinational, in manufacturing, service, storage or transportation, that want to:

Establish, implement, maintain and improve an organizational resilience management system.
Demonstrate resiliency and continuity for supply chain and contractual agreements.
Assure conformance with stated organizational resilience management policy.
Demonstrate and document conformance to the ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard.
Make a self-determination and self-declaration of conformance with the ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard.
Seek certification/registration of its organizational resilience management system by an accredited third-party certification body.

Leverage an existing investment in other ISO management system standards (e.g. ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001) to improve security, preparedness and continuity performance.

“The selection of the ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard for adoption for use in the PS-Prep program offers organizations a business-friendly, globally tested and proven method based on the ISO management system standard model, to improve their preparedness performance,” said Mark Geraci, CPP, chairman of the ASIS Commission on Standards and Guidelines.

As a complement to this effort, ASIS is offering a three-day class on Implementation and Auditing to the ANSI/ASIS Organizational Resilience Standard. Attendees will learn to implement the ASIS standard, identify necessary steps to establish and maintain an organizational resilience management system, understand the conduct of risk assessments and impact analysis to support decision making for resilience, and establish an effective internal auditing program to evaluate and improve performance. For more information on this class, go to http://www.asisonline.org.

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