OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ASSESSMENT SERIES

The Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) specification 18001 and its accompanying guideline OHSAS 18002 have been developed in order to establish an accepted occupational health and safety management system.

OHSAS 18001 has been developed to be compatible with the quality ISO 9001 quality management system and ISO 14001 environmental management system standards. This enables integration of quality, environemnt and health and safety management.

WHAT IS OHSAS 18001?

Unlike ISO 9000 and ISO 14000; OHSAS 18001 was developed with the assistance of several national standards organizations and accreditaityon bodies. OHSAS 18001 is not an ISO Standard.

HOW TO IMPLEMENT OHSAS 18001?

The most important stage of establishing OHSAS management system is to carry out a comprehensive risk analysis from health and safety points of view and then develop ways and means to control the defined risks.

As it is in ISO 14001; OHSAS 18001 does not have any absolute requirements for perfromance besides commitment to legislation and continual improvement in the policy. OHSAS 18001 also covers the management of organization and is based on "Plan- Do- Check -Act" model.

Stages following the commitment of upper management to OHSAS are:

1. Defining health and safety policy
2. Planning
3. Implementation and Operation
4. Checking and Corrective Action
5. Management Review


Requirements of ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 are exactly the same while the main difference of two systems is risk analysis in OHSAS 18001 instead of definition of environmental aspects in ISO 14001.



USEFUL LINKS

http://www.osha-bs8800-ohsas-18001-health-and-safety.com

http://www.ohsas-18001-occupational-health-and-safety.com

http://www.bsi-global.com/Business+Solutions/Ohs/