Can a Quality Policy include Health and Safety as an Objective?

[adickerson]

Dangerous ground here and you'd best make sure that it's firm before you tread on it. If an organization places OHS in their policy and within their QMS they have cast their feet in concrete with little wiggle room.

You have mentioned that it is risky twice. What specific risks?

Are you alluding that if a company that makes OHS a key measure of their company performance they may actualy need to make saftey a priority and work to reduce workplace injury?

I get the feeling you have a specific example we may want to watch out for.

 

[Paul Simpson]

Was wondering if a Quality policy could include Health and Safety as an objective?

Of course it can but it is now not a quality policy!

It's a serious point because an organisation can put anything it likes in a policy. Many organisations have integrated policies covering H, S, E & Q (among others). If it is carefully thought through it can work but IMHO they are separate issues and warrant separate statements.

So if your quality policy includes a commitment to safety then it is more than a Quality policy.

 

[Brunetta]

Whoops, Boris got his post in before I could.
Responding to adickerson and the OP....

I could be wrong, but I have experienced auditor scope creep too many times to give an invitation like that.
I believe you may be expanding the scope of your Quality Management System by including OHS objectives, hence opening a door for an auditor to then audit not only ISO 9001 but 18001 as well?
I wouldn't do that unless I was sure my Quality Management System was integrated with my OHS Management System.
I would also let my CB know the scope had changed and discuss with them the potential implications.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I believe you may be expanding the scope of your Quality Management System by including OHS objectives, hence opening a door for an auditor to then audit not only ISO 9001 but 18001 as well?

This has been discussed here so many times. If an organization has an integrated management system, encompassing quality, environment, occupational health & safety, information security, food safety, etc...they MUST not be "penalized" if they want a sub-set of their management system certified to a specific standard, e.g., ISO 9001.

Any auditor worth their salt should know that an audit must have a scope and criteria. If I am contracted to perform an audit against ISO 9001, that is the boundary of my audit. Paragraph 0.4 of ISO 9001 makes it abundantly clear that ISO 9001 contains no E,H&S requirements. So, I, as an auditor MUST not stray away from my game, EVEN when confronted with integrated management systems. I reckon that, sometimes there is no clear demarcation of where a quality issue ends and a health & safety issue starts. For example, a forklift operator that is not competent/certified to perform the function. But, in most cases, if I am a COMPETENT auditor, I should know when something falls outside the scope of the audit that I am assigned to perform.

We must promote efficiency and effectiveness via properly integrated management systems. The fear of being "written up" by a misguided, incompetent outside auditor should not be a deterrent against integration of management systems.

 

[pldey42]

Some while ago NASA had an objective to send a man to the moon and bring him back - alive. Both a quality objective and an H&S objective for the man concerned. In terms of designing, manufacturing and operating the space ship, I'd guess that ISO 9001-style quality management of its propulsion, navigation and life support systems contributed more to H&S than ISO 18000-style H&S. Further, separating them into different management systems would have been unhelpful.

Consider an explosives factory. They don't want product to go bang except in a controlled test environment (- or after the customer got it and lobbed it at the enemy). Is that preservation of product under ISO 9001 or H&S under ISO 18000? Running two separate systems would invite duplication of effort. Where would be the harm in having a quality policy that says something like "To meet customer requirements by making product that makes a big bang on demand, in an environment that preserves the safety of our factory, workers and the local community." Such would drive design of the factory in a fashion that integrates quality and H&S requirements.

Disney's quality policy at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando FLA is something like "Every child leaves with a smile on his or her face." This single, simple, multi-purpose statement drives quality things like good rides, automatons that work all the time, familiar characters amusing the kids in the queues - and it drives safey, for kids don't smile when the roller coaster leaves the rails. Again, much of the safety is delivered with quality management techniques like track inspections, maintenance schedules, design and manufacturing processes that incorporate safety considerations ... I saw a TV documentary somewhere that showed roller-coaster maintenance engineers take the cars and tracks apart for annual maintenance, put them all back together, then go themselves on the first ride - is that high class ISO 9001-style validation or what?

For the auditor, why not audit quality aspects against ISO 9001 and safety against their own safety procedures - which might be incomplete by ISO 18000standards, but surely better than nothing. I'd rather a safety harness without a hazard assessment, than none at all.

Hope this helps,
Pat

 

[Randy]

I saw a TV documentary somewhere that showed roller-coaster maintenance engineers take the cars and tracks apart for annual maintenance, put them all back together, then go themselves on the first ride - is that high class ISO 9001-style validation or what?

Nope! I've got over 3000 flight hours and close to 10,000 or so take-offs performing maintenance test flights in helicopters as a QA/QC professional and a couple of 'em went south fast. I'll leave out the ejection from a disentegrating OV-10 for another time.

For the auditor, why not audit quality aspects against ISO 9001 and safety against their own safety procedures - which might be incomplete by ISO 18000standards, but surely better than nothing. I'd rather a safety harness without a hazard assessment, than none at all.

The deal is most quality auditors have no business messing with safety because they have probelms enough trying to plod through 9001

Pat

Hiya Pat!

 

[Sidney Vianna]

For the auditor, why not audit quality aspects against ISO 9001 and safety against their own safety procedures - which might be incomplete by ISO 18000standards, but surely better than nothing. I'd rather a safety harness without a hazard assessment, than none at all.

Hope this helps,
Pat

No, it does not help. Firstly, there is NO ISO 18000. Unless you are talking about RFID devices. You probably mean OHSAS 18001.

How can you ensure that a QMS auditor is competent to assess the effectiveness of an organization OHSMS? Because if their OHS procedures are inadequate and a QMS auditor "gives them a clean bill of health" (pun intended), while the workforce is subjected to unacceptable hazards and risks, the QMS auditor is doing them a disservice, and exposing him/her and his/her employer to liability issues.

 

[howste]

I realize that this thread is in the ISO 9001 forum, but consider this: TS 16949, a quality management system standard, does address personnel safety.

6.4.1 Personnel safety to achieve conformity to product requirements

Product safety and means to minimize potential risks to employees shall be addressed by the organization, especially in the design and development process and in manufacturing process activities.

Would it be inappropriate to include anything relevant to safety in a quality policy, when some of the QMS requirements are safety-related?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I realize that this thread is in the ISO 9001 forum, but consider this: TS 16949, a quality management system standard, does address personnel safety.

I wonder if that requirement ever gets assessed against and written up, during an TS16949 audit. The new AS9100C has a similar requirement as well in the note under product quality objectives. It just proves the point that standard developers are from perfect.

 

[John Broomfield]

Was wondering if a Quality policy could include Health and Safety as an objective?

Ron,

Why not? QA is defined as providing confidence that requirements will be fulfilled.

Therefore the QMS can deliver assurance of:

• Customer requirements being fulfilled
• Employee requirements being fulfilled
• Other stakeholder requirements being fulfilled
• Objectives being fulfilled

In this context you may prefer to change your QMS to a BMS as is required by the IRIS standard for the rail industry.

The BMS runs the business and everyone is engaged in determining, reconciling and meeting requirements for A, B, C and D.

All of the system is subject to internal audit.

The BMS may have a wider scope than the scope you have also defined for certification purposes.

Do not limit your management system by worrying about the external auditor.

Focus on the needs of your organization instead.

John