http://ohsas18001expert.com/2007/07/18/what-is-management-of-change/ Developing, Implementing & Maintaining Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:14:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://ohsas18001expert.com/2007/07/18/what-is-management-of-change/comment-page-1/#comment-274 Bob Westly Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:22:52 +0000 http://ohsas18001expert.com/2007/07/18/what-is-management-of-change/#comment-274 Thea - The conversation we had regarding what constitutes a "change," who's responsible for assessing the change, and how this gets done in the context of reassessment was enlightening. The question I raised to you was how does an organization decide a sufficient change has occurred to warrant reassessment of aspects and/or risks. This question came up in the context of a major international industry's significant challenges in various types of changes occurring at various times and locations around the globe. Basically, the question was: "How small a change is not a change?" A follow up question was: "How does one determine if a change needs a reassessment without actually doing the reassessment?" We agreed that apparent size of the change is essentially meaningless relative to potential effects on aspects and/or risks. Regarding who's responsible, you indicated in your experience there does need to be a responsible person in the organization, typically the EHS director, who is competent to review the "change" and decide if reassessment is warranted. Following our discussion on these issues, I held a teleconference with one of the non-US business units of the international industry and reviewed this with their EHS management team. They were in wholehearted agreement, had implemented procedures in basic agreement with the above, and even pilot tested their procedure in advance to assure its effectiveness. I did discover that they were not aware of the experience of the U.S. indicating that lack of proper management of change is a major contributor to safety incidents. They plan to research this discovery a bit more, which I suspect will be used to further improve their management of change procedures. Thea – The conversation we had regarding what constitutes a “change,” who’s responsible for assessing the change, and how this gets done in the context of reassessment was enlightening. The question I raised to you was how does an organization decide a sufficient change has occurred to warrant reassessment of aspects and/or risks. This question came up in the context of a major international industry’s significant challenges in various types of changes occurring at various times and locations around the globe. Basically, the question was: “How small a change is not a change?” A follow up question was: “How does one determine if a change needs a reassessment without actually doing the reassessment?” We agreed that apparent size of the change is essentially meaningless relative to potential effects on aspects and/or risks. Regarding who’s responsible, you indicated in your experience there does need to be a responsible person in the organization, typically the EHS director, who is competent to review the “change” and decide if reassessment is warranted. Following our discussion on these issues, I held a teleconference with one of the non-US business units of the international industry and reviewed this with their EHS management team. They were in wholehearted agreement, had implemented procedures in basic agreement with the above, and even pilot tested their procedure in advance to assure its effectiveness. I did discover that they were not aware of the experience of the U.S. indicating that lack of proper management of change is a major contributor to safety incidents. They plan to research this discovery a bit more, which I suspect will be used to further improve their management of change procedures.

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