posted 23 May 1999 02:17 AM               

Subject: Re: ANNOUN: The Dev of the OHSAS Doc /Popovici
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 12:22:33 -0600
From: ISO Standards Discussion

From: "Popovici, Laurian"
Subject: RE: RE: ANNOUN: The Dev of the OHSAS Doc /Popovici

Message for Sidney or anyone else who may have knowledge on this subject:
Did the OHSAS 18001 get released ? If so, can it be obtained somewhere on
the internet?

Thanks,
Laurian Popovici
----------------------------

From: "Vianna, Sidney"
OHSAS 18001
Occupational health and safety management systems: - Specification

For some time there has been urgent customer demand for a recognisable occupational health and safety management system specification, for the assessment and certification of OH&S management systems. However, there has been insufficient agreement within the formal standards development processes for the development of a UK national standard, a European standard, or an international standard, in this area (although agreement was eventually reached over the development of BS 8800: 1996 Guide to occupational health and safety management systems).

This has led to the development of a number of OH&S management systems specifications, both by national standards bodies and by independent groups.

DNV, in association with other national standards bodies, certification bodies, and specialist consultancies, has since decided to try and meet this increasingly urgent customer demand, and to try and harmonize the work in this field. This has resulted in the development of this Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) Specification, OHSAS 18001. This standard will be offically released in the UK in April 99.

It is stressed that OHSAS 18001 is not a UK national nor International standard and certification can still only be done on a non-accredited bases.

OHSAS 18001 has not been developed through the formal standards development process. Instead, it has been developed by a process that is open to other sponsors wishing to produce similar types of documents in association with BSI, provided that those sponsors are willing to comply with BSI's conditions for such documents. Most of BSI's conditions only apply to the UK.

An accompanying publication, OHSAS 18002 Guidelines for the implementation of OHSAS 18001, is also under development and will be published shortly (June 99). OHSAS 18001 has been developed to be compatible with the IS0 9001: 1994 (Quality) and IS0 14001: 1996 (Environmental) management systems standards, in order to facilitate the integration of quality, environmental and occupational health and safety management systems by organizations, should they wish to do so.

It is hoped that the application of OHSAS 18001 may provide useful data for the future development of either a UK national OH&S management systems specification standard, or for an international standard.

Participating Parties in Writing of OHSAS 18001 OHSAS 18001 has been developed with the assistance of the following co-operating organizations:

National Standards Authority of Ireland
Standards Australia
South African Bureau of Standards
British Standards Institution
Bureau Veritas Quality International
Det Norske Veritas
Lloyds Register Quality Assurance
National Quality Assurance
SFS Certification
SGS Yarsley International Certification Services
Asociacion Espaola de Normalizacion y Certificacion
International Safety Management Organisation Ltd
Standards and Industry Research Institute of Malaysia-Quality
Assurance Services
International Certification Services

Documents referenced during the development of this OHSAS
specification:

BS 8800:1996 Guide to occupational health and safety management systems
Technical Report NPR 5001: 1997 Guide to an occupational health and
safety management system
SGS & ISMOL ISA 2000:1997 Requirements for Safety and Health
Management Systems
BVQI SafetyCert: Occupational Safety and Health Management Standard
DNV Standard for Certification of Occupational Health and Safety
Management Systems (OHSMS):1997
Draft NSAI SR 320 Recommendation for an Occupational Health and Safety
(OH and S) Management System
Draft AS/NZ 4801 Occupational health and safety management systems -
Specification with guidance for use
Draft BS I PAS 088 Occupational health and safety management systems
UNE 81900 series of pre-standards on the Prevention of occupational
risks
Draft LRQA SMS 8800 Health & safety management systems assessment
criteria

OHSAS 18001 will supersede some of these referenced documents. OHSAS 18001 maintains a high level of compatibility with, and technical equivalence to:

AS/NZ 4801
UNE 81900