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Workplace Safety Compliance: The New Approach

Workplace Safety is emerging as one of the key risk management and regulatory compliance focus areas among many global companies. As a result of this trend, traditional workplace safety compliance systems, which were designed to be point solutions at a plant-level, are giving way to enterprise-wide safety management systems. Such systems need to comply with the OSHA 29CFR regulations and support the OSHAS 18001 framework, while providing enterprise-wide visibility into incidents and trends, corrective actions and process metrics. This paper highlights the requirements of next generation systems for workplace safety compliance

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Regulations
OSHA's mission is to assure the safety and health of America's workers by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, outreach, and education; establishing partnerships; and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety and health. OSHA and its state partners have approximately 2100 inspectors, plus complaint discrimination investigators, engineers, physicians, educators, standards writers, and other technical and support personnel spread over more than 200 offices throughout the country. This staff establishes protective standards, enforces those standards, and reaches out to employers and employees through technical assistance and consultation programs. The passage of the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 clearly defined the regulations governed by OSHA.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was passed to assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women; by authorizing enforcement of the standards developed under the Act; by assisting and encouraging the States in their efforts to assure safe and healthful working conditions; by providing research, information, education, and training in the field of occupational safety and health; and for other purposes. The regulations under the act are covered in 29 CFR.

29CFR Part 1903 states that

  • Every employer covered under the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 furnish to his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.

  • Employers comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under the Act, and that employees comply with standards, rules, regulations and orders issued under the Act which are applicable to their own actions and conduct.

  • The Department of Labor be authorized to conduct inspections, and to issue citations and proposed penalties for alleged violations.
29CFR Part 1904 requires employers to record and report work-related fatalities, injuries and illnesses. Under the act, companies are required to use OSHA 300, 300-A, and 301 forms, or equivalent forms, for recording work-related injuries and illnesses.

First Generation Safety Compliance Software
With the 29CFR safety regulations, came a rash of companies dedicated to helping manufacturers comply with the regulation. Most of these companies were small to midsize consulting and training firms that helped manufacturers set up automated systems to manage their compliance - primarily record keeping and reporting. They sometimes added auditing services to measure levels of compliance pre- and post-project. These first generation applications were almost always developed as point systems to address specific requirements - such as OSHA incident recording and reporting OR Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and Hazardous Material Inventory management. The following diagram lists various point solutions in the market along the health and safety continuum.


Please click on image for enhanced version

Global Organizations Begin To Look for Next Generation Safety Solutions
Most first generation applications in use today have been purchased by the plant personnel--the environmental safety department or the plant HR organization. In some cases, they developed simple applications in-house. As a result, many large corporations have ended up with different systems in different plants, making it difficult for the plants to share EH&S (Environmental Health & Safety) information with their corporate headquarters or other factories. The setup is not only inefficient, but it obstructs companies from sharing and implementing common EH&S management practices across the entire enterprise, the foundation for standards such as OHSAS 18001.

OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series) is a consensus standard developed in 1999 by an independent group of national standards bodies and certification bodies (registrars). OHSAS 18001 was specifically developed to be compatible with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 (the environmental management system standard) to allow companies to develop and register integrated quality, environmental and occupational safety and health management systems. OHSAS 18001 covers:

  • Developing an OHS Policy
  • Hazard Identification & Risk Assessment
  • Training Employees
  • Implementing OHS Control Measures
  • Emergency Planning
  • Document and Record Control
  • Internal Audit Programs
  • Corrective and Preventative Action
  • Management Involvement and Management Review

In addition, many progressive manufacturers see EH&S as beyond just a compliance issue. Rather, they see it as a risk-management issue. As a result, EH&S has gained more visibility at corporate headquarters and corporate I.T. is being asked to implement systems that transcend plant boundaries.

The combination of a need to support the OHSAS 18001 framework and the need for a corporate-wide safety solution has created a trend that is analogous to the ERP story, where large corporations ripped out local-level point systems in favor of global ERP systems.

The industry analysts have identified the following core requirements of an enterprise-wide safety system:

  • The system should provide an integrated set of the modules that enable OHSAS 18001 to drive closed loop process for reducing potential risk of safety incidents
    • Audit/inspection Management
    • Incident Management
    • Corrective Action
    • Change Control
    • Document Management
    • Training Management

  • The system should enable user to capture and report incidents and provide information on hazardous material
  • The system should be developed from the ground up using web architecture, so it can be easily accessed by any user within the company and can easily integrate with other systems or corporate portals.
  • Enterprise-wide reporting on a incident/plant/division/company hierarchy and an Executive Dashboard to report on key process indicators

A system that implements such capabilities will meet both objectives for Workplace Safety - risk management and regulatory compliance at the enterprise level, as well as, at the plant level.

About MetricStream
MetricStream, a market leader in Compliance and Quality Management Systems, was designed to allow its customers to comply with various industry regulations governed by FDA, EPA, NHTSA, OSHA etc. as well as industry initiatives such as ISO 9000, QS 9000 and Six-sigma. Market leaders in industries as diverse as Automotive, High Technology, Consumer Goods, Manufacturing, Pharmaceutical, Food Services and Government use the company's solution. Developed from the ground up using web architecture, MetricStream provides an integrated set of the following modules to drive closed loop corrective actions and increase compliance.

  • Audit Management
  • Inspection Management
  • Incident Management
  • Corrective Action (CAPA)
  • Change Control
  • Document Management
  • Training Management
  • Equipment Management
  • Process Dashboards

For more information on MetricStream and its integrated compliance and quality product set, please click here

Please send feedback on this paper or ideas for additional research topics to the author at agupta@metricstream.com