many industries. There are so many local, state, and national laws and regulations that it's difficult to keep them all straight. We even find conflicting compliance issues that are virtually impossible to resolve. This might be one reason why many Americans haven't heard much about the British Standards Institute's new standard, Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series 18001. However, it will likely become important for any manager who's concerned about employee health and safety. This article looks at OHSAS 18001 and its possible applications in the United States.
Overview
When talking about standards, we should be clear. In the true sense of the term, a standard isn't a regulation or law; however, many regulations are referred to as "standards." Thus, standards released by the American Society for Quality or the American National Standards Institute don't hold the stature of legal requirements. When considering OHSAS 18001, we're dealing with a safety management standard. These standards don't usurp any local regulations concerning occupational safety and health issues but have been developed to ensure a system of managing the organization to reduce or eliminate risks to employees. In many parts of the world, there's not nearly the number of regulations or laws affecting occupational health and safety as there are in the United States. OHSAS 18001, which is now being audited around the world, was developed for the many countries that didn't have clearly defined safety management standards. Here in the United States, we have many laws and various Occupational Safety and Health Administration agencies, although we, too, generally lack an overall management system. A plant manager who delegates all occupational health and safety responsibility to a safety manager might feel that somehow the plant operations group isn't involved in managing safety risks for employees. The issue for many managers working in the U.S. system is how to focus on continually improving a system that's heavily regulated and where one mistake can result in a citation or fine.
All employees should know how to identify a hazard and/or risk to the organization. These responsibilities are often delegated to an individual or a small group.
Basic elements
The structure of OHSAS 18001 is similar to the model found in ISO 14001. In OHSAS 18002, each clause lists the OHSAS 18001 requirement, intent of the standard, inputs to the process, a generic process description and typical outputs of the process. Let's look at the intent of each clause of OHSAS 18001: 4.0 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems
4.1 General Requirements--To establish and maintain a management system that ensures conformance to the standard. This should lead to the organization meeting regulatory concerns. 4.2 OH&S Policy --In the vernacular of OHSAS 18001, the policy is meant to establish an overall sense of direction and define the principles of action for an organization. A policy should set objectives, identify responsibility, establish targets for performance and demonstrate formal commitment. As with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, the process approach should be applied. 4.3 Planning 4.3.1, Planning for Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment and Risk Control --The organization must identify, determine and control risks associated with identified and unintentional hazards. 4.3.2, Legal and Other Requirements--The organization must understand and be aware of any regulatory responsibilities affecting its operations. Relevant personnel must be kept informed. 4.3.3, Objectives--The organization must set measurable OH&S objectives and track results in all relevant locations. 4.3.4, OH&S Management Program(s)--The organization must ensure that OH&S objectives and the processes by which they're tracked are monitored, reviewed, updated and recorded as needed. Plans and strategies should be in writing, followed and updated as needed by the organization. 4.4 Implementation and Operation 4.4.1, Structure and Responsibility--The organization must establish roles, responsibilities and authorities, and ensure that these are defined, documented and communicated as appropriate. 4.4.2, Training, Awareness and Competence--The organization must have effective procedures ensuring that personnel assigned to tasks are competent. 4.4.3, Consultation and Communication--The organization should encourage participation and support of its OH&S practices, policies and objectives from anyone who might be affected by the operations (both internally and externally). 4.4.4, Documentation --The organization must ensure that the OH&S management system is adequately understood and that personnel can execute the system effectively and efficiently. 4.4.5, Document and Data Control--The organization must identify and control related documents and information to ensure effective OH&S operations. 4.4.6, Operational Control --The organization must be prepared to control risk, fulfill policy and objectives, and conform to legal and other regulations. 4.4.7, Emergency Preparedness and Response --The organization should actively review possible accident and emergency responses, have plans to meet these possibilities and conduct dry-run drills to test the system's readiness. 4.5 Checking and Corrective Action 4.5.1, Performance Measurement and Monitoring--The organization must have key performance parameters from all parts of the organization to monitor the OH&S management system. At a
minimum, measures are needed for achieving policies and objectives; risk assessment; lessons learned; effective awareness, training and communication; and other information deemed useful. 4.5.2, Accidents, Incidents, Nonconformances, and Corrective and Preventive Action --The organization should have procedures that strive to prevent the occurrence and/or reoccurrence of incidents. These procedures should allow for root cause analysis and timely reporting. 4.5.3, Records and Records Management --The organization should keep evidence that the OH&S is operating effectively. 4.5.4, Audit--The organization should review and continually monitor the effectiveness of its OH&S management system. The internal audit program should follow ISO 19011 and be conducted at planned intervals. 4.6 Management Review--Top management should conduct reviews of the OH&S management system. This includes assessing the system for continual improvement opportunities.
Resulting benefits include: The number of incident reports was reduced for three consecutive quarters, from 21 to 15 to four. The number of lost workdays was reduced in the same three quarters, from 34 to 11 to zero. The company initiated a $50 rebate for each employee each year for the purchase of safety shoes. An ear protection policy was put in place in selected areas of manufacturing. Procedures were updated to reflect current practices; these procedures served as the basic training format for all employees. Records were maintained on standardized forms, which resulted in a standardized reporting system and more meaningful data. The quarterly management review meeting served as a means of informing management of the status of the health and safety program and resulted in immediate attention to the current plant issues. Personal safety equipment such as gloves, welding aprons, welding sleeves and respirators were enhanced. The entire workforce has been trained and/or retrained, and training has been extended into the new employee orientation program. Evacuation drills were held as well as specialized training in CPR, proper fire-extinguisher use, spill cleanup, pollution prevention, and conservation of energy and resources. An already low turnover rate has decreased by an additional 1.3 percent during the last six months.
Summary
OHSAS 18001 has been established by the leading safety management systems organizations from around the world. You'll need to check with your registrar to see if it's qualified to assist you with third-party registration to OHSAS 18001. Otherwise, your organization could make a selfdetermination and declaration of conformance with the OHSAS specification. Either way, the new standard represents a continuation of the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards and can be integrated into existing management systems to help ensure the safety of employees and the organization.