2 Standards, definitions and books T 19

2.1 Standards
2.2 Definitions
2.3 Books

2.1 Standards

QSE purposes and standards

2.1

The most commonly used standards for integrated management system are:

ISO 9001 (2015): Quality management systems - Requirements
ISO 45001 (2018): Occupational health and safety management systems - Requirements with guidance for use
ISO 14001 (2015): Environmental management systems - Requirements with guidance for use

The three standards are generic because they apply to any business, without any constraint on the size, activity or type. The scope of the integrated QSEquality, safety, environment management system is determined and a documented information is maintained.

Similarities and differences in the purpose of the three standards are shown in figure 2-1:

purpose qms

purpose oh&sms

purpose ems
Figure 2-1. Purpose of QSE standards

Another demonstration of the close relationship between QSE standards is the common standard ISO 19011 (2011): "Guidelines for auditing management systems."

A BritishPAS (publicly available specification) is dedicated to the integration of management systems:

PAS 99: 2012 Specification of common management system requirements as a framework for integration.

The ISO 14004: 2016 standard "Environmental management systems - General guidelines on principles, systems and technical implementation" contains many explanations, practical tips and examples.

ISO 14031: 2021 "Environmental Management - Environmental performance evaluation - Guidelines" shows how to set up and use the environmental performance evaluation (EPE) and the analysis of the life cycle to find improvement points. Its commitment to compliance with legal and regulatory requirementsexplicit or implicit need or expectation (see also ISO 9000, 3.1.2), pollution prevention and continuous improvement can be evaluated with the help of indicators.

ISO 14005: 2019 "Environmental management systems - Guidelines for the phased implementation of an environmental management system, including the use of environmental performance evaluation" shows how to implement an environmental management system in 3 phases, 19 clauses and 72 steps.

ISO 14044: 2006 "Environmental management - Life cycle assessment - Requirements and Guidelines" specifies requirements and provides guidelines for conducting life cycle assessments.

ISO 14063: 2020 "Environmental Communication" provides guidance on general principles, policy, strategy and activities relating to internal and external environmental communication.

ISO 14050: 2020 "Environmental management - Vocabulary" provides definitions of basic concepts, directly related to environmental management.

ISO 31000: 2018 "Risk management - Guidelines" establishes the principles and risk management process, risk assessment and risk treatment.

All of these standards and many more can be ordered in electronic or paper format on the ISO site.

More than 28,000 standards (in English and other languages) are available for free on the Public.Resource.Org site.

The Oxebridge Q001 is a user-friendly, open source remix of ISO 9001:2015.

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2.2 Definitions

Terms and definitions

2.2

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. Socrates

Most of the terms and definitions of the QSEquality, safety, environment standards are identical. A small part of terms has slightly different definitions.

Specific quality terms:

Customer: anyone who receives a product
Customer satisfaction: top priority objective of every quality management system related to the satisfaction of customer requirements
External provider (supplier): an entity that provides a product
Nonconformity: non-fulfillment of a specified requirement
Product (or service): every result of a process or activity
Quality: aptitude to fulfill requirements
Quality management: activities allowing the control of an organization with regard to quality
Quality objective: related to quality, measurable goal that must be achieved

Specific health and safety terms:

Acceptable risk: risk reduced to a tolerable level
Accident: undesired event causing death or health and environmental damages
Emergency situation: event that poses a serious threat to life, health, property or the environment
Hazard: situation that could lead to an incident
Incident: undesired event that could lead to health damages
Occupational health and safety (OHS): everything that can influence the wellbeing of the personnel in a company
Safety: aptitude to avoid an undesired event :

Specific environmental terms:

Environment: space in which any organization functions
Environmental aspect: every element of an organization that interacts with the environment :
Environmental impact: every change in the environment caused by an organization :
Environmental objective: environment related, measurable goal that must be achieved :
Environmental performance: measurable results of the environmental management system

Some common terms:

Competence: personal skills, knowledge and experiences
Conformity: fulfillment of a specified requirement
Corrective action: action to eliminate the cause of nonconformity or any other undesirable event and to prevent their recurrence
Documented information: any suport allowing the treatment of information
Effectiveness: capacity to realize planned activities with minimum effort
Efficiency: financial relationship between achieved results and used resources
Indicator: value of a parameter, associated with an objective, allowing the objective measure of its effectiveness
Interested party: person, group or company that can affect or be affected by an organization
Management system: set of processes allowing objectives to be achieved
Organization (company): a structure that satisfies a need
Process: activities that transform inputs into outputs
Top management: group or persons in charge of the company's control at the highest level
Risk: likelihood of occurrence of a threat or an opportunity

In the terminology of integrated management systems, do not confuse:

accident and incident
- an accident is an unexpected serious event
- an incident is an event that can lead to an accident
anomaly, defect, dysfunction, failure, nonconformity,reject and waste
- anomaly is a deviation from what is expected
- defect is the non-fulfillment of a requirement related to an intended use
- dysfunction is a degraded function that can lead to a failure
- failure is when a function has become unfit
- nonconformity is the non-fulfillment of a requirement in production
- reject is a nonconforming product that will be destroyed
- waste is when there are added costs but no value
audit, auditee, auditor and inspection
- an audit is used to find deviations in relation to a standard
- an auditee is the one who is audited
- an auditor is the one who conducts the audit
- an inspection is the verification of the conformity of a process or product
audit program and plan
- an audit program is the annual planning of the audits
- an audit plan is the description of the audit activities
control and optimization
- control is the attainment of the objective
- optimization is the search for the best possible results
customer, external provider (supplier) and subcontractor
- a customer receives a product
- an external provider provides a service or a product
- a subcontractor provides a product or service on which a specific work is done
effectiveness and efficiency
- effectiveness is the level of achievement of planned results
- efficiency is the ratio between results and resources
follow-up and review
- follow-up is the verification of the obtained results of an action
- review is the analysis of the effectiveness in achieving objectives
inform and communicate
- to communicate is to pass on a message, to listen to the reaction and discuss
- to inform is to give someone meaningful data
objective and indicator
- an objective is a saught after commitment
- an indicator is the information on the difference between the pre-set objective and the achieved result
organization and enterprise, society, company
- organization is the term used by the ISO 9001 standard as the entity between the supplier and the customer
- an enterprise, society and company are examples of organizations
procedure, process, product, activity and task
- a procedure is the description of how we should conform to the rules
- a process is how we satisfy the customer using people to achieve the objectives
- a product is the result of a process
- an activity is a set of tasks
- a task is a sequence of simple operations

Remark 1: the use of ISO 9000, ISO 45001 and ISO 14001 definitions is recommended. The most important thing is to determine a common and unequivocal vocabulary for everyone in the company.

Remark 2: the customer can also be the user, the beneficiary, the trigger, the ordering party or the consumer.

Remark 3: documented information is any information that we must maintain (procedure ) or retain (record ).

For other definitions, comments, explanations and interpretations that you don’t find in this module and annex 06, you can consult: explications record