OHSAS 18001:2007 - let us understand.

For beginners, OHSAS stands for Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series. OHSAS 18001 specifications were first issued in the year 1999, to enable organizations to assess themselves against the OH&S risks prevailing in their workplace and get themselves certified. However during the intervening period the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards underwent revisions. The OHSAS specifications were due for revision from that point onwards. Initial meeting of group was held in Oct 2006 and SECOND DRAFT was proposed in Nov 2006. Second meeting was held in China in March 2007 and comments from 40 countries were reviewed. The STANDARD(not the specifications) was issued in July 2007. There have been some key changes in the standard which has come out in July 2007. Changes have been done basically to align the OHSMS (OHSAS 18001:2007) with QMS (ISO 9001:2000) and EMS (ISO 14001:2004). Prime intention is to facilitate organizations to move towards Integrated Management system, should they desire to move in that direction. Key focus areas in the revised standard are: 1. Health. 2. Tolerable risk and acceptable risk. 3. Accident and Incident. 4. Hazard and Risk assessment process. 5. Management of change. 6. Compliance evaluation and OH&S performance. 7. Need for continual improvement. 8. Workplace or ‘Place of work’. Health and well being of employees is one of the two strong focus areas in the OHSAS standard. The establishment of OH&S system comprising of Policy, Planning, Implementation and Operation, Checking and corrective action and Management review is the fundamental step. The definition of Occupational health and safety as per standard OHSAS 18001:2007 “conditions and factors that affect, or could affect, the health and safety of employees or other workers (including temporary workers and contractor personnel), visitors, or any other person in the workplace.” Above definition illustrated in 2007 standard now includes “conditions and factors that could affect the health and safety of employees or other workers”. Emphasis is also on the conditions and factors which are presently not getting focus or raising concerns but they are likely to affect the health and safety in due course . Another, key change depicting strong focus on health is definition of workplace. Place of work has now become workplace. The definition of workplace as given in the standard is “ any physical location in which work related activities are performed under the control of Organization”. The ambit has widened and now includes personnel traveling, in transit, working at premises of the client or customer or at working at home.” This is a landmark change. With changing working environment, economic conditions and our transgression to borderless world, the OH&S management system definitely has widened and covers all the activities in its influence.

Source: qmsforyou.blogspot.com

Internal Auditing Tips

On this page we will be adding tips to assist you in your auditing efforts.

Free Tip #1:
Contact auditees at least four times about their scheduled audit. The first contact would come when the annual audit schedule is generated. The second should be about one month prior to the audit. This allows the auditee time to prepare for any additional resources necessary (They shouldn't need extra time to "get their areas squared away".). The third contact should be about a week before the audit. At this time, you can give the auditee a detailed schedule about exact times, and locations of audit activities. For example, you will be auditing receiving inspection at 10:45. Each of these contacts should be in writing (email is just as good). The day before the audit, place a quick phone call (or voicemail) to verify the audit.

Of course, you still need to have an opening meeting, and that is in addition to the above. The reason for the multiple contacts is simply, we tend to forget things due to our work load. Audits should never be a surprise, this ensures the auditee has every chance to prepare.

Free Tip #2:
When preparing the audit schedule take into account such things as:

:: Available resources
:: Audit Scope
:: Sample Size

The key is not to bite off more than your auditors can chew [Translation: Don't over-commit your resources]. Smaller, but more frequent audits may be better than comprehensive three-day audits. Inadequate resources may indicate lace of Executive Management commitment.

Free Tip #3:
One of the hardest things to do is get a quick turn-around time on corrective actions. Auditors are frequently frustrated by lower and mid-management's foot dragging on responding to audit findings. One way to get faster action is to have executive management place effective corrective action turn-around time in management's performance appraisals. By tying in corrective actions to performance appraisals, bonuses, etc., you virtually force management into timely, effective corrective actions. This could also work with audits completed on time, etc. It also shows lower and mid-management that executive management is committed to the process.

Free Tip #4:
If you company has email…try to set up a paperless audit system where the only thing you would need to "print out" and hand write would by your audit worksheet, which you take withy you to collect your evidence/samples. We have a paperless system here - we are able to email out notification forms and audit summaries without ever printing a sheet. It works EXCELLENTLY! We even File our paperless paperwork electronically for when our third -party auditors come to audit!
Write your procedures in Flowchart style. This helps to make the workflows appear that much clearer for new and veteran auditors alike. By having all of our procedures in flowchart style, we have cut down on our audit time by half and increased audit accuracy tremendously!
Jill Chavanne, Internal Audit Program Manager, Weiss-aug. Co

Free Tip #5:
Auditors are frequently frustrated by lower and mid-management's foot dragging on responding to audit findings. One way to improve the timeliness of audit finding responses is to issue reminder notifications. Our audit finding response due dates are normally two weeks from the issue date of the finding. I typically issue two "Reminder of Approaching due date" notifications, one at 50% of allotted response time and the other at 75%. This method can be modified to fit your particular system, i.e. issuing only one notice for lessor response time allotments. This documentation can be in the form of a manual memorandum/form or the more efficient e-mailed memorandum/form. Issuing reminder notifications demonstrates a monitored system and can also prove useful if elevation of the finding becomes necessary.
David A. Wimer, BAE SYSTEMS

Free Tip #6:
"Be sure to follow-up on corrective actions from previous audits: don't only audit to see the corrective actions have been implemented. Make sure the corrective action corrected the problem that caused the corrective action in the first place."

Betsy Hsiao, Quest Analytical

Editor's note: One theme Internal-Auditor.com has pushed over and over again is the output of audit nonconformances should be effective corrective actions. My good friend Betsy is absolutely correct. This is one area where many internal audit programs are weak. We don't want to upset the auditee when the corrective action is ineffective, so we overlook the situation. Read the observation again, study it, and do it!

Free Tip #7:
In order to have an effective Corrective Action, Nonconformities must have three attributes:

They must be Understandable: If the auditee does not understand the nonconformity, they will not know how to deal with it.
They must be Actionable: If there is no action that can be taken, the Corrective Action cannot be achieved.
They must be Unarguable (that is not a word, but it fits): If an auditee can argue ANY part of a nonconformity, they will argue rather than correct.

Free Tip #8:
Auditing is all about asking questions. As an auditor, you have to make sure you ask the right person, the right question. You also have to make sure YOU understand the question you are about to ask. If you don't understand the question, how can you expect to understand the answer. You must also ask questions in a manner that the auditee will understand them.

Source: www.internal-auditor.com/tips.htm

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