OHSAS 18000

OHSAS 18000 is an international occupational health and safety management system specification. Comprised of two parts, 18001 and 18002, OHSAS 18000 embraces BS8800 and a number of other publications.

Developed by a group of certification bodies and various national standards organizations, OHSAS 18001 was designed to enable companies to control their OHS risks. It also allows companies to demonstrate their commitment to providing a safe working environment, protecting their employees, and improving overall performance.

Due to the success of the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 series of standards, OHSAS 18001 was developed to be compatible with the other ISO management systems. Many sections and sub-clauses are similar to other systems, such as management review, document control, and corrective and preventive actions, making OHSAS 18001 easily compatible with other common certifications.

Benefits

Certifying your OHSAS 18001 management system enables your organization to prove that it conforms to the specification and provides the following benefits:

• Potential reduction in the number of accidents.
• Potential reduction in downtime and associated costs.
• Demonstration of legal and regulatory compliance.
• Improved performance through policies and procedures.
• Demonstration to stakeholders of your commitment to health and safety.
• Demonstration of an innovative and forward thinking approach.
• Increased access to new customers and business partners.
• Better management of health and safety risks, now and in the future.
• Potential reduced public liability insurance costs.
• Compliance to the latest legislation.
• Provides a framework for organizational risk management.
• Demonstrates due diligence and reasonable care - reduced personal and corporate liability in the event of an incident.
• Reduces worker's compensation costs and health care insurance premiums.
• Increases productivity, improves employee health, and reduces absenteeism.
• Improves employee satisfaction and employee retention, attracts the best new skills, and improves product / service quality.
• Demonstrates corporate social responsibility.

The Challenge

In a competitive marketplace, your customers are looking for more than just low pricing from their suppliers. Companies need to demonstrate that their businesses are managed efficiently and responsibly and that they can provide a reliable service without excessive downtime caused by work-related accidents and incidents.

The following issues may impact a company in its registration efforts:

• Supporting cultural change throughout implementation.
• Difficulty in adoption and standardization of OHSAS initiatives across the organization.
• Regulatory pressure.
• Compliance costs are high and limited resources - when asked, most companies will normally identify money, personnel, and time as their most problematic resources.
• Extracting and transforming data of occupational health and safety to risk information and identifying and quantifying operational risks.
• Ensuring adequate contingency and business continuity plans.
• Demonstrating robust occupational health and safety management to all stakeholders or managers.
• Time can become a severe limitation for a business.
• Implementing an effective team structure with management support.
• And many others.

All of these are significant challenges. However, the implementation and registration of a management system helps an organization achieve continuous performance improvement.

To deal with all these challenges an integrated and automated management system can certainly be of great help.

SoftExpert Excellence Suite provides organizational efficiency, process control, and flexibility to help simplify the tasks involved in managing data and information. It also helps your organization make better decisions in managing the content and process that drive your business.

SoftExpert Excellence Suite is an integrated, configurable, and easy-to-use software solution especially designed to facilitate adherence to ISO quality standards. SoftExpert Excellence Suite can help meet key OHSAS 18000 requirements, while at the same time, increase efficiency and keep compliance costs down.

 

Each SoftExpert Excellence Suite module meets key regulatory requirements, as shown below:

Module	Compliance and Requirements
SE Action	Manages the entire process by: Identifying and correcting nonconformities. Taking actions to mitigate their impacts. Investigating nonconformities. Determining their causes. Taking actions in order to avoid their recurrence. Evaluating the need for actions to prevent nonconformities and implementing appropriate actions designed to avoid their occurrence. Recording the results of the CAPA. Reviewing the effectiveness of the CAPA.
SE Audit	Manages the entire process by: Planning and executing first, second and third part audits. Programming audits, taking into consideration the scope, status and importance of the processes and/or areas to be audited. Defining the criteria, methods, responsibilities and requirements to be audited. Selecting the auditors, according to their skills, ensuring that they will not audit their own work. Maintenance of records: Audits and their results. Evidence ocurrences¹. Disposition action and CAPA¹. Cause analysis¹. Follow-up activities¹. Verification of the actions taken¹.
SE BI	Helps identify, collect and analyze appropriate data to demonstrate the suitability and effectiveness of the management system.
SE Calibration **	Helps ensure that monitoring and measurement equipment is properly calibrated and/or verified, and that associated records are maintained.
SE Competence *	Helps the organization: Ensure that any person performing tasks for it or on its behalf that have the potential to cause a significant EHS risk identified by the organization is competent based on appropriate education and/or experience. Establish, implement and maintain procedures to ensure that the people working for it or on its behalf are aware of: The importance of conformity with the EHSM policy and procedures and the requirements of the management system. The significant EHS risks and related actual or potential impacts associated with their work, as well as the benefits of improved personal performance. Their roles and responsibilities achieving conformity with the management system requirements. The potential consequences of deviation from the specified procedures.
SE Document	Manages the entire process by: Elaborating, reviewing and approving documents for adequacy prior to issue. Reviewing and updating as necessary and re-approving documents. Identifying, storing, protecting, retrieving, retaining and disposing of records. Ensures that: Changes and the current revision status of documents are identified. Relevant versions of applicable documents are available. Documents and records remain legible and readily identifiable. Documents of external origin determined by the organization are identified and their distribution controlled. Prevents the unintended use of obsolete documents, and suitably identifies them if they are retained for any purpose.
SE Maintenance **	Ensures the availability of the infrastructure essential for establishing, implementing, maintaining and improving the management system.
SE Performance	Manages the entire process by: Establishing, implementing, maintaining and analyzing objectives, indicators and targets for following the policy established by the organization, including its commitment to: Its the significant EHS risks. The prevention of pollution. Compliance with applicable legal requirements and other requirements to which the organization subscribes. Continuous improvement. Its technological options, its financial, operational and business requirements and the views of interested parties. Deploying objectives, indicators and targets at relevant functions and levels within the organization. Designating the responsibility for achieving the objectives and targets at relevant functions and levels of the organization. Defining adequate means and time-frames for monitoring and, where applicable, measuring the objectives, indicators, targets and processes established by the organization.
SE Process	Manages the entire process by: Defining the processes needed and their application throughout the organization. Determining the sequence, interaction and EHS risks of these processes. Determining the criteria and methods required to ensure that both the operation and control of these processes are effective and mitigated EHS risks. Defining the resources and information necessary to support the operation and monitoring of these processes. Defining the monitoring and measurement points, where applicable, and analyzing these processes. Implementing the actions necessary to achieve planned results and continually improve these processes.
SE Project *	Manages the entire process by: Establishing, implementing, maintaining and analyzing the action plans (programs) for following the policy established by the organization. Deploying action plans at relevant functions and levels within the organization. Designating the responsibility for completing action plans at relevant functions and levels of the organization. Defining adequate means and time-frames for the monitoring and, where applicable, measurement of action plans established by the organization.
SE Request	Manages the entire identification process through: Requirements specified by the interested parties (customer, shareholders, employees, suppliers and community). Requirements not stated by the customer but necessary for specified or intended use, where known. Statutory and regulatory requirements applicable to the product and the process. Any additional requirements considered necessary by the organization with aims of enhancing customer satisfaction.
SE Risk	Helps the organization: Manage the risks associated with its organizational environment and related changes. Ensure that the significant EHS risks are taken into account when establishing, implementing and maintaining its management system. Manages the entire process by: Identifying the EHS risks of its activities, products and services within the defined scope of the management system that it can control and those it can influence. Determining those EHS risks that have or can have significant impacts. Documenting this information and keeping it up to date.
SE Training *	Helps the organization: Ensure that any person performing tasks for it or on its behalf that have the potential to cause a significant EHS risk identified by the organization is competent based on appropriate training. Identify training needs associated with its EHS Risks and its management system. Provide training or take other actions to meet these needs. Retain associated records.

* Premium Package
** SE Suite Package
¹ Activities performed through the interface with SE Action