Developing a Safety, Occupational Health, and Environmental (SOHE) Program as Part of a Total Quality Program
Authors: Owen D. , Raeburn G. 
Published: October 2008

ISO 9001 is the Standard for Quality Systems, Issued In 1987 by the International Organisation for Standardisation. This paper shows how a Total Quality Program which embodies the principles of ISO 9000 can extend to include a management program for Safety, Occupational Hygiene, and Environmental protection (SOHE). It demonstrates how those p:inciples apply both to doing things right first time, and to d01ng them safely. Experience of developing this program is given, within the context of a new North Sea operation.

INTRODUCTION

Safety, health, and environmental protection are all led issues which have rightly assumed prominence over recent years, not only in the offshore oil and gas industry but in all areas of human endeavour. This prominence is the result of public concern about a whole series of transportation and 1ndustrial disasters, combined with an increasing awareness of mankind's potential to damage the Earth's life support mechanisms through unchecked technological advance. Political and social pressures are now bearing down on business managers to put safety and quality in equal priority with profitabil ity. There is a growing recognition by industrial companies that by increasing the emphasis on quality and safety, then costs are frequently reduced by lower downtime and less rework and less time is spent overcoming the results of poor or unsafe work. It is also evident from management research that a well managed company is also a more successful, safer, higher quality and more environmentally, caring company. This 1nter-relat10nsh1p 1S the fundamental justification for a Total Quality (TQ) program: to do things right first time in every sense possible. The development of a TQ management system, built upon the International Standard ISO 9000 principles, readily allows for the positive management of safety, occupational hygiene, and environmental protect1on as an integral feature of that system.

THEORY AND DEFINITIONS

Judicial and public inquiries in the United Kingdom into major disasters 1nvolvlng fatalities, such as the K1ng s Cross subway fire, the Clapham Junction train crash, the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry, and the loss of Piper Alpha have all concluded that these incidents were due to more than just the initiating fault or mistake. In each case there was a management belief in a safety regime, but the former co-existed with practices that undermined the latter. The missing elementswere the monitoring of work procedures the feedback of non-compliance, and the application of remed1es - 1n short there was no effective safety management control loop. Lord Cullen, in his report on the Piper Alpha disaster has made a recommendation that the operators of all offshore installations should employ a Safety Management System (SMS) based upon the principles of the International Standard for Quality Systems ISO 9000. It is essentially a management system for manufacturers, although the principles of ISO 9000 to which Lord Cullen referred can apply equally to non-manufacturing organizations such as service companies, oil and gas E&P operations, or project management teams. Also, the attribute under control need not be quality; it can just as well be safety health or environmental protection. In general, the principle of ISO 9000 can apply to managing a job 1n the r1ght manner, no matter what that job might be.