OHSAS 18001 is an important standard for any business committed to safety. While not required, like OSHA regulations, implementing OHSAS 18001 will help you stay in compliance with many of the OSHA regulations that pertain to your business. OHSAS takes a common sense look at your business, at what you do, and at your potential hazards, and looks to mitigate risk without interrupting business flow.
This standard accomplishes this by involving management and employees, requiring effective training, identifying hazards, evaluating your business’ operations to see if any hazards are created from them, and taking all of that to create a plan to prevent and control all found hazards. The process of OHSAS 18001 has proven results, and ensures your business is in compliance with OSHA regulations relating to Lockout/Tagout, Emergency Evacuation Plans, Confined Spaces, Arc Flash, Personal Protective Equipment, and Signage among other things.
As you can see, we have previously blogged about each one of these topics. This should show how important each topic truly is – and to implement a comprehensive solution which covers all of these topics together will save you time, money, work place injuries, and headaches. Further, should you ever have issues with OSHA, being able to show your action plan and continued adherence to OHSAS 18001 will help you avoid additional and unnecessary citations and fines.
While the initial implementation of this standard can be difficult, a professional firm who has been down this road before can help you to understand the specifics as they relate to your business. Further, good firms will have plans in place to help you to stay in compliance. Here at PF Safety, we utilize our Factory Solutions Software to help you to continue to monitor your compliance. With this software, you can be sure that you are remaining in compliance as your systems and processes change.
If you would like more information about OHSAS 18001 or if you would like more information about our Factory Solutions Software, please contact us. And if you have anything to add about the benefits of OHSAS 18001, please leave a comment.
