Health & Safety in ISO 9001:2000 Audits - OH&S Regulations

T

tomjess

#1
If we as company comply to our Health & Safety bodies (statutory and regulatory requirments). Can they be an issue to us when audited for ISO 9001:2000?

It seems as if the auditors need to have something to find during the audit.

Thanks in advance
 
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M

MikeL

#4
Quality Audit including safety issues

There are a couple of auditing bodies who will raise breaches of OH&S regulations with companies.

They can only make them observations and cannot insist they be fixed.

They believe it is part of their "due dilligence".

Problem for the audited company is that if they have an incident they cannot claim no one pointed out breach to them.
 
N

nomisd

#5
The future?

Interesting question.

From the point of view of the standard as it currently exists, my opinion is that if an auditor wanted to they can use clause 6 of the standard (or to be more exact clause 6.3 Infrastructure) if they want to raise a non-com/observation etc for health and safety reasons.

Our external auditor did exactly this at our surveillence audit in September. On his tour around our manufacturing site, he found a pallet with PC base units boxed up and ready to leave the factory. He insisted that they were too many stacked (8 boxes high) on a pallet and that (and to quote him) "The height shouldn't exceed 6 feet". Our production director was incandescant! He made the point to the auditor that it was up to him to decide what was safe working practice in his factory, not the auditor. The observation was raised anyway. The way we have answered the observation is by writing a risk assessment for the stacking of boxes which states "up to eight high"!

Our production directors main beef was that he objected to someone who is a quality auditor coming in and telling him that he is running his factory in an unsafe manner. Added to this was that the auditors justification was something that the production director (and I) considered to be a bit spurious - he couldn't tell us why 6 feet was significant or where he had got the guidance from. We came to the conclusion that he had given this us a observation as he was getting a bit desperate (it was only one of three things that he could raise as a observation in a whole day) and needed something to write on our report form to prove that he had actually audited us (or were we being a bit cynical!)

What is interesting about all of this is that during our closing meeting, the auditor informed us that by 2012 ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OAHS 18001 are all going to be combined and become a big super standard. Its sound to me like they are all practising for when this happens! More seriously, has anyone else heard about this combining of the management standards?

Cheers

Simon
 

RoxaneB

Super Moderator
Super Moderator
#6
nomisd said:
What is interesting about all of this is that during our closing meeting, the auditor informed us that by 2012 ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OAHS 18001 are all going to be combined and become a big super standard. Its sound to me like they are all practising for when this happens! More seriously, has anyone else heard about this combining of the management standards?
Haven't heard that, but I'd be upset if they did. While there is commonalities between the standards, there are also enough differences to keep them separate.

That being said, however, my company is in the process of merging our 9K, 14K, and ISRS/18K into one system. Only one other company in our organization has done this...and their operations manual is 28 pages long (in standard font, too!). :applause:
 
K

Kevin H

#7
Auditing & Safety

Good morning all, I just finished an internal quality audit of one of our departments yesterday. I'm going to be "stirring the pot" by writing a nonconformance against safety - not wearing presribed safety equipment. We have a procedure level document that was written to cover section 6.4, Work environment, of ISO 9001 that includes minimal safety equipment requirements. The work instruction also spells out safety equipment requirements - personnel were violating both. I feel that we made the safety requirements "fair game" when we included them in procedures and work instructions.

Past experience has been different - at the immediately prior employer the safety program was rigorous and separate from quality - no issues with internal or external auditors about writing a safety finding as a OFI or nonconformance. At the employer prior to that, we had posted rules that stated certain equipment was required to enter the area - had a 3rd party auditor who observed employees without it and wrote it as a nonconformance - we weren't too happy with it, but didn't object and did correct the issue. This company also had a fairly rigorous safety program - in fact in 30+ years of employment they were the only company that I've ever seen shutdown a critical piece of production equipment until a safety problem was corrected.
 
L

little__cee

#8
6.3 and 6.4

Our auditor told us from the get-go that he loves 6.3 Infrastructure and 6.4 Work environment as a way to evaluate safety practices of a company. He loves to play the safety card and luckily he praises us for our practices.

He is a bit extreme on the safety - we had a fire extinguished located about 4 feet away from a soda vending machine and he suggested that we relocate the extinguisher but he did not write it up as a finding.

:topic: As a side note, he has already warned us that for 2005 he will be seriously reviewing chains and lifting devices as part of his audits, since that was the #1 OSHA violation this past year. Is it right? I don't know. Can he do it? Oh yes he can!
 
B

Bill Pflanz

#9
Kevin H said:
Good morning all, I just finished an internal quality audit of one of our departments yesterday. I'm going to be "stirring the pot" by writing a nonconformance against safety - not wearing presribed safety equipment. We have a procedure level document that was written to cover section 6.4, Work environment, of ISO 9001 that includes minimal safety equipment requirements. The work instruction also spells out safety equipment requirements - personnel were violating both. I feel that we made the safety requirements "fair game" when we included them in procedures and work instructions.
I agree with Kevin. If you make safety part of your written documentation that is part of your registration scope than it is auditable. As far as a quality auditor writing non-conformances that are clearly in the area of safety or environmental, I would not concur. The OSHA and EPA regulations are complex and extensive. It is unlikely a quality auditor would have sufficient knowledge to audit against those standards.

During an internal audit, I have written nonconformances if the safety requirement was included in the written documents but I have also informally told the safety department about other safety problems. I even had one safety supervisor asked me to write it up formally so the problem was documented. It is more of an internal decision on registration scope and is not for an external auditor to decide in my opinion.

Bill Pflanz
 
J

jaimezepeda

#10
nomisd said:
What is interesting about all of this is that during our closing meeting, the auditor informed us that by 2012 ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OAHS 18001 are all going to be combined and become a big super standard. Its sound to me like they are all practising for when this happens! More seriously, has anyone else heard about this combining of the management standards?

Cheers

Simon
So how did this auditor come about this information? If indeed that is the case then what will that mean to all those not already comforming to ISO 14001 and OAHS 18001?
 
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