Apparently the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) issued a position statement in March 2009 stating that although they support the integration of health and safety programs into existing management systems, they will not “specifically mandate OHSAS 18001 certification.” A recent blog post asked “Is it politics once again?” According to the AIAG statement they firmly [...]
Posted in OHSAS 18001:2007 Revisions, Standards & Certification 
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What does the current meltdown of the global financial markets teach us? To paraphrase a line from the last presidential election – “It’s the System, Stupid.” Right now, there is a lot of finger-pointing and plenty of blame to spread around. This mess is not, however, the fault of a single individual, a single institution [...]
Posted in OHSAS 18001:2007 Revisions, OHSMS Implementation 0 Comments »
I attended the annual American Industrial Hygiene Association conference (AIHce) last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There were many excellent sessions covering a wide range of topics important to the practice of industrial hygiene. In particular, the Tuesday morning general session focused on demonstrating the value of the industrial hygiene profession and included a presentation by Jeffrey [...]
Posted in OHSAS 18001:2007 Revisions, OHSMS Implementation, Risk Management 0 Comments »
Yesterday, I discussed areas to concentrate on for maintaining your OHSAS 18001 management system. What about continual improvement of your occupational health and safety management system? Section 4.1 of OHSAS 18001:2007 sets out five general requirements for an OH&S management system – establishing a management system documenting your management system implementing your management system maintaining your [...]
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In a previous blog, I listed five significant changes made to OHSAS 18001 in the 2007 revision. One of these significant changes is the clarification of the role of incident investigation in an occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS). In particular, incident investigation is now a separate subsection of section 4.5.3 — Incident investigation, [...]
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In the 2007 revision of OHSAS 18001, a requirement was added for allocating, documenting and communicating accountabilities — as well as responsibilities. While accountability is not defined in OHSAS 18001, it is an important concept in a management system. The dictionary definition is “the state of being accountable, liable or answerable.” According to wikipedia, the word “accountability” [...]
Posted in FAQ, OHSAS 18001:2007 Revisions 5 Comments »
As mentioned in a previous blog, there are many different OH&S management system standards and guidance documents that have been developed over the years. The 2005 survey conducted by the OHSAS Working Group identified 44 specification and 43 guidance documents in use around the world. There are three factors, when taken together, distinguish OHSAS 18001 [...]
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Although it is often used as a term of art in the safety field, “management of change” is not a defined term in OHSAS 18001:2007. It is, however; vital to an effective OH&S management system. Explicit requirements for management of change were added into section 4.3.1 of OHSAS 18001 in the 2007 revision of the [...]
Posted in Emergency Preparedness, OHSAS 18001:2007 Revisions, Risk Management 1 Comment »
Section 4.3.1 of OHSAS 18001 (Hazard Assessment, Risk Assessment & Determining Controls) was completely changed during the revision process. Overall, these changes align OHSAS 18001 more closely with other OH&S management system standards such as ANSI/AIHA Z10:2005. This section now sets out additional details on both the inputs to be considered and the methodology to be used for the [...]
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One of the major criticisms of the 1999 version of OHSAS 18001 was that it was a “management” standard that ignored “labor” interests. Significant changes were made in section 4.4.3 of the standard to address these concerns. First, this section of the standard was divided into two sub-sections: 4.4.3.1 Communication and 4.4.3.2 Participation and Consultation. The requirements in [...]
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