Integrated health, safety and environmental management systems
The continued rise in accident and ill health statistics throughout the member states of the European Union indicate that the standards of occupational health, safety and environmental control require further improvement to minimise the current level of loss. Management systems are regarded as an effective means of reducing this loss by continuously improving standards. Whilst there is much discussion and debate about the possibilities of integrating management systems, at present, there are no national or international published integrated management standards, although some multi-national companies have introduced their own internal integrated standards. The research explored the development of an integrated health, safety and environmental (HSE) management system within a range of industrial organisations. This included the development of tools for successful implementation of integrated systems, specifically for significance review, risk assessment and auditing. Resources and accreditation constraints precluded exhaustive testing of all clauses within the proposed integrated management standard. However, analysis of key aspects of the standard revealed: 1. The introduction and use of separate health, safety and environmental (HSE) management systems improved the standards of risk control within organisations. 2. Organisations perceived that there were clear business advantages in some form of integration of existing standards. 3. The developed integrated HSE standard was technically possible in the area of policy development, process operations, working instructions and documentation. However, the integration of risk assessment and audit tools gave limited advantages compared to existing separate systems. 4. The proposed integrated HSE standard complied with both individual European member states national legislative requirements and European/World-wide management standard criteria. In summary this thesis represents an original contribution to the field of integrated management systems. The thesis also identifies areas of further work that will increase the knowledge base, scope of application of the work carried out.
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