A New Safety Standard Emerges – What You Need To Know

The standard is perhaps the most significant occupational safety and health voluntary international consensus ever devised…

Robert Box | Exclusive to Corridor News

The International Organization of Standardization (ISO) and American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) announced the publication of a new voluntary international standard on March 12, 2018 for a new Occupational Health & Safety Management System (OHSM) called ISO 45001.

The Swiss-based ISO says the new ISO 45001 is a management system framework for occupational health and safety that can work well in any sized organization and should help reduce injuries and illnesses around the world. 

In the works since 2013, and with input from more than 75 countries, the ISO 45001 standard is perhaps the most significant occupational safety and health voluntary international consensus ever devised.

It is hoped the new ISO 45001 will be a globally accepted standard, much like the outgoing Occupational Safety & Health Assessment Series (OSHAS) 18001, an internationally applied British Standard for occupational health and safety management systems, which the ISO 45001 is designed to replace. 

Organizations that are already certified to OHSAS 18001 will have three years to comply with the new voluntary ISO 45001 standard.

The new ISO 45001 standard was developed to be compatible with other existing ISO standards such as the ISO 14001 (environmental management standard) and ISO 9001 (quality management standard), and was designed by a committee of experts who followed a combination of other safety management systems like ANSI/ASSE Z10, guidelines from the International Labor Organization, and various national standards.

Shared elements can be found in each of the ISO’s management system standards, including the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” (PDCA) model, which establishes a plan framework for organizations to utilize in minimizing risk and hopefully reducing incidents and absenteeism.

Robert Box is the owner of Safety First Consulting and is a contributor of SM Corridor News. Box helps businesses identify OSHA compliance issues in their workplaces, manage their safety programs and become accountable for the results. In addition to offering custom written safety programs for companies, Safety First Consulting provides required safety training, industrial hygiene sampling, noise sampling and workplace inspections. You can read more from Robert Box under Business.