OHSAS 18001 : 2007

Firstly what is it?

OHSAS 1800:2007 is the Occupational health and safety management systems. Requirements. And like it states in the title it specifies the requirements for anoccupational health and safety (OH&S) management system, to enable an organisation to control it's OH&S risks and improve it's performance.

OHSAS18001:2007 is an official standard and it supersedes OHSAS 18001:1999 which was purely a specification (remains current until 2009).

Why is OHSAS 18001 good for you?

Companies are coming under increasing commercial, regulatory and ethical pressures to control risk from their operations. Most organisations now ensure they comply with the appropriate legislation, with many realising the benefits a formalised approach to health and safety management systems can bring.

The health and safety of people, the need to meet legislation and maintain a good business reputation are three very good reasons why organisations are taking health and safety management seriously.

Combined with the adverse publicity and subsequent loss of reputation arising from incidents, it makes good commercial sense to formalise any existing health and safety management system and opt for independent third-party certification to the occupational health and safety standard OHSAS 18001.

When considering development and implementation of a health and safety management system, many companies are surprised they already have many of the components in place that would constitute such a system.

Health and safety issues affect all organisations to some degree and potential hazards and risks exist with each activity conducted. Traditionally, Occupational Health & Safety Management in Europe and the US has been based very much on compliance with legislative requirements. In other words, it has been based on controls that were imposed for particular risks as they were prescribed via legislation or regulatory guidance. The modern principle of risk-based safety management places the responsibility much more firmly with the organisation itself to determine what it needs to do, to adequately control risks given its own particular circumstances.

The mangement system model for this OHSAS Standard:

• OH&S Policy
• Planning
• Implementation and operation
• Checking and corrective action
• Management review
• CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT

Intergration with other recognised standards:

This OHSAS Standard is based on the methodology known as Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). PDCA can be briefly described as follows.

1. Plan: establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the organization’s OH&S policy.
2. Do: implement the processes.
3. Check: monitor and measure processes against OH&S policy, objectives, legal and other requirements, and report the results.
4. Act: take actions to continually improve OH&S performance.

Many organizations manage their operations via the application of a system of processes and their interactions, which can be referred to as the
“process approach”. ISO 9001 promotes the use of the process approach. Since PDCA can be applied to all processes, the two methodologies are considered to be compatible.

OHSAS 18001 has been developed to be compatible with the ISO 9001:2000 (Quality) and ISO 14001:2004 (Environmental) management systems standards, in order to facilitate the integration of quality, environmental and occupational health and safety management systems by organizations, should they wish to do so.

This OHSAS Standard will be reviewed or amended when considered appropriate. Reviews will be conducted when new editions of either ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 are published, to ensure continuing compatibility.