What is OHSAS 18001?

OHSAS 18000 is an international occupational health and safety management system specification. It comprises two parts, 18001 and 18002 and embraces a number of other publications.
For the record, the following other documents, amongst others, were used in the creation process:

• BS8800:1996 Guide to occupational health and safety management systems
• DNV Standard for Certification of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems(OHSMS):1997
• Technical Report NPR 5001: 1997 Guide to an occupational health and safety management system
• Draft LRQA SMS 8800 Health & safety management systems assessment criteria
• SGS & ISMOL ISA 2000:1997 Requirements for Safety and Health Management Systems
• BVQI SafetyCert: Occupational Safety and Health Management Standard
• Draft AS/NZ 4801 Occupational health and safety management systems Specification with guidance for use
• Draft BSI PAS 088 Occupational health and safety management systems
• UNE 81900 series of pre-standards on the Prevention of occupational risks

Draft NSAI SR 320 Recommendation for an Occupational Health and Safety (OH and S) Management System

OHSAS 18001 is an Occupation Health and Safety Assessment Series for health and safety management systems. It is intended to help an organizations to control occupational health and safety risks. It was devloped in response to widespread demand for a recognized standard against which to be certified and assessed.

Source: http://www.ohsas-18001-occupational-health-and-safety.com

Optimizing Six Sigma at the Top of the World

Here’s a story that proves once again that exciting quality applications can occur anywhere in the world.

BHP Billiton operates the EKATI Diamond Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territo­ries, approximately 200 miles northeast of Yellowknife—just below the Arctic Circle. Arctic winter gear designed for temperature well below -45°C is standard attire during the long winters, when the sun barely rises above the horizon. Although the setting is harsh, it can also be a beautiful place to observe and enjoy a truly unique perspective on nature.

EKATI is proud of its commitment to become the safest, lowest-cost pro­ducer of quality diamonds in the world. Employees at EKATI are passionate about creating a safe and sustainable business and thriving communities, as well as developing people. This business strives to select, develop, and retain the right people while extracting value from low-value ores. The business drivers are to create zero harm, increase margin per ton, and create an engaged workforce.

In 2007, a new management team at the EKATI mine kicked off a lean Six Sigma deployment that utilized a five-year plan to drive breakthrough improvements. How­ever, as for so many organizations, EKATI was also challenged with accurately and easily tracking and archiving improvement programs. Keeping tabs on and archiving the mine’s various quality improvement initiatives using spreadsheets was a time-consuming challenge—thus the need for an enterprisewide software tracking system.

In an environment in which saving just a few dollars per ton of mined diamonds is considered a major success, there is a profound need for extremely accurate tracking of the financial benefits of proj­ects. Tracking and validating bottom-line value in the current recession is critical and allows for control and the ability to maneuver with a lean Six Sigma work­force.

“You always need tracking for what’s in existence and what isn’t,” says Aart Broekhuizen, business excellence manager at BHP Billiton’s EKATI mine. “You need to see the different phases of projects, and you want to have some understanding of the past performance of projects in case it’s needed for future reference, as well as being able to track and sustain the bottom line and continuously enhance business processes and systems.”

With this stated objective in mind, and after a diligent search of avail­able options, Broekhuizen and the rest of the mine’s quality excellence team decided to entrust the tracking soft­ware portion of their Six Sigma pro­gram to EnterpriseTrack from Instantis Inc. of Santa Clara, California. Instantis is an on-demand provider of project management solutions, and EnterpriseTrack is a full-featured, web-based solu­tion that allows companies to initiate, track, and manage Six Sigma and other performance initiatives across the entire organization.

Adaptability is one of the key fea­tures of EnterpriseTrack. “The degree of configurability was a key issue,” says Howard Pujol, strategic engagement manager at Instantis. “BHP Billiton EKATI management knew what they wanted, and were very clear on the functionality that they desired.”

For example, mine management quickly discovered that the software helped tie together often disparate elements of the organization into a unified whole. “We designed how best to use the software in meetings with our management team, Master Black Belts, and Black Belts,” says Broekhuizen. “The whole thing is a process of engagement and enrol­ment—the belts and their teams will work on projects, and the software also brings in the finance department to track and validate monetary value.”

EnterpriseTrack has proven handy for document tracking, and users have the ability to sort and find a single project, instantly uncover the status of that project, look at the timeline, and ana­lyze metrics and benchmarks. The user can standardize exactly how he or she wishes to track and handle the granular information uncovered in the “Analyze” phase of a Six Sigma implementation. Ten fully integrated modules, including Strategy Manager, Process Manager, Idea Manager, Proposal Manager, Projects Manager, Knowledge Manager, Metrics Manager, and VOC Manager, all of which plug into EnterpriseTrack’s world-class dashboards and reports, offer a complete view into the deployment, from top to bottom.

Benefits:

• Web-based solution that initiates, tracks, and manages Six Sigma and other per­formance initiatives for organizations in a wide variety of industries.
• Highly flexible and adaptable
• Collects inputs from various sectors of the organization and makes it easy to track status of projects.

Source: qualitydigest.com/inside

Abstract ISO 14001:2004

ISO 14001:2004 specifies requirements for an environmental management system to enable an organization to develop and implement a policy and objectives which take into account legal requirements and other requirements to which the organization subscribes, and information about significant environmental aspects. It applies to those environmental aspects that the organization identifies as those which it can control and those which it can influence. It does not itself state specific environmental performance criteria.

ISO 14001:2004 is applicable to any organization that wishes to establish, implement, maintain and improve an environmental management system, to assure itself of conformity with its stated environmental policy, and to demonstrate conformity with ISO 14001:2004 by

a) making a self-determination and self-declaration, or

b) seeking confirmation of its conformance by parties having an interest in the organization, such as customers, or

c) seeking confirmation of its self-declaration by a party external to the organization, or

d) seeking certification/registration of its environmental management system by an external organization.

All the requirements in ISO 14001:2004 are intended to be incorporated into any environmental management system. The extent of the application will depend on factors such as the environmental policy of the organization, the nature of its activities, products and services and the location where and the conditions in which it functions.

ISO 14001:2004 also provides, in Annex A, informative guidance on its use

Source: iso.org/iso

ISO 14000 Essentials

The ISO 14000 family addresses various aspects of environmental management. The very first two standards, ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 deal with environmental management systems (EMS). ISO 14001:2004 provides the requirements for an EMS and ISO 14004:2004 gives general EMS guidelines.

The other standards and guidelines in the family address specific environmental aspects, including: labeling, performance evaluation, life cycle analysis, communication and auditing.

An ISO 14001:2004-based EMS

An EMS meeting the requirements of ISO 14001:2004 is a management tool enabling an organization of any size or type to:

• identify and control the environmental impact of its activities, products or services, and to
• improve its environmental performance continually, and to
• implement a systematic approach to setting environmental objectives and targets, to achieving these and to demonstrating that they have been achieved

How it works

ISO 14001:2004 does not specify levels of environmental performance. If it specified levels of environmental performance, they would have to be specific to each business activity and this would require a specific EMS standard for each business. That is not the intention.

ISO has many other standards dealing with specific environmental issues. The intention of ISO 14001:2004 is to provide a framework for a holistic, strategic approach to the organization's environmental policy, plans and actions.

ISO 14001:2004 gives the generic requirements for an environmental management system. The underlying philosophy is that whatever the organization's activity, the requirements of an effective EMS are the same.

This has the effect of establishing a common reference for communicating about environmental management issues between organizations and their customers, regulators, the public and other stakeholders.

Because ISO 14001:2004 does not lay down levels of environmental performance, the standard can to be implemented by a wide variety of organizations, whatever their current level of environmental maturity. However, a commitment to compliance with applicable environmental legislation and regulations is required, along with a commitment to continual improvement – for which the EMS provides the framework.

The EMS standards

ISO 14004:2004 provides guidelines on the elements of an environmental management system and its implementation, and discusses principal issues involved.

ISO 14001:2004 specifies the requirements for such an environmental management system. Fulfilling these requirements demands objective evidence which can be audited to demonstrate that the environmental management system is operating effectively in conformity to the standard.

What can be achieved

ISO 14001:2004 is a tool that can be used to meet internal objectives:

• provide assurance to management that it is in control of the organizational processes and activities having an impact on the environment
• assure employees that they are working for an environmentally responsible organization.

ISO 14001:2004 can also be used to meet external objectives:

• provide assurance on environmental issues to external stakeholders – such as customers, the community and regulatory agencies
• comply with environmental regulations
• support the organization's claims and communication about its own environmental policies, plans and actions
• provides a framework for demonstrating conformity via suppliers' declarations of conformity, assessment of conformity by an external stakeholder - such as a business client - and for certification of conformity by an independent certification body.

Source: iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/management_standards

ISO 9000 Essentials

The ISO 9000 family of standards represents an international consensus on good quality management practices. It consists of standards and guidelines relating to quality management systems and related supporting standards.

ISO 9001:2008 is the standard that provides a set of standardized requirements for a quality management system, regardless of what the user organization does, its size, or whether it is in the private, or public sector. It is the only standard in the family against which organizations can be certified – although certification is not a compulsory requirement of the standard.

The other standards in the family cover specific aspects such as fundamentals and vocabulary, performance improvements, documentation, training, and financial and economic aspects.

Why an organization should implement ISO 9001:2008
Without satisfied customers, an organization is in peril! To keep customers satisfied, the organization needs to meet their requirements. The ISO 9001:2008 standard provides a tried and tested framework for taking a systematic approach to managing the organization's processes so that they consistently turn out product that satisfies customers' expectations.

How the ISO 9001:2008 model works
The requirements for a quality system have been standardized - but many organizations like to think of themselves as unique. So how does ISO 9001:2008 allow for the diversity of say, on the one hand, a "Mr. and Mrs." enterprise, and on the other, to a multinational manufacturing company with service components, or a public utility, or a government administration?

The answer is that ISO 9001:2008 lays down what requirements your quality system must meet, but does not dictate how they should be met in any particular organization. This leaves great scope and flexibility for implementation in different business sectors and business cultures, as well as in different national cultures.

Checking that it works

• The standard requires the organization itself to audit its ISO 9001:2008-based quality system to verify that it is managing its processes effectively - or, to put it another way, to check that it is fully in control of its activities.
• In addition, the organization may invite its clients to audit the quality system in order to give them confidence that the organization is capable of delivering products or services that will meet their requirements.
• Lastly, the organization may engage the services of an independent quality system certification body to obtain an ISO 9001:2008 certificate of conformity. This last option has proved extremely popular in the market-place because of the perceived credibility of an independent assessment.

The organization may thus avoid multiple audits by its clients, or reduce the frequency or duration of client audits. The certificate can also serve as a business reference between the organization and potential clients, especially when supplier and client are new to each other, or far removed geographically, as in an export context.

Source: iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/management_standards

Abstract ISO 9001:2008

ISO 9001:2008 specifies requirements for a quality management system where an organization.

• needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, and
• aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.

All requirements of ISO 9001:2008 are generic and are intended to be applicable to all organizations, regardless of type, size and product provided.

Where any requirement(s) of ISO 9001:2008 cannot be applied due to the nature of an organization and its product, this can be considered for exclusion.

Where exclusions are made, claims of conformity to ISO 9001:2008 are not acceptable unless these exclusions are limited to requirements within Clause 7, and such exclusions do not affect the organization's ability, or responsibility, to provide product that meets customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements.

Source : iso.org