*AJ Risk Engineering AB,  Sweden

Integrated the Management/Auditing Systems - Practical Guidelines (Especially for SEM/S)

Abstract

Guidelines for an Integrated Safety/Health/Environment (SHE) management system and for a SHE auditing system have been developed by the author for the Association of Swedish Chemical Industries, in the following referred to as the Association. Some of the characteristics for both systems are:

• Safety, Health and Environmental aspects are integrated;
• Basis is the natural activities of process industries or chemical handling industries;
• Highly concrete and practical approach;

The main purpose of the Guideline for Integrated SHE management system is that the enterprises should be able to build effective SHE management systems with the help of the concrete sample procedures, which are provided. To make the procedures concrete, they have been written for a sample company with typical chemicals handling. The set of procedures and their concrete contents shall "guarantee" that the requirements of legislation in the area of SHE are fulfilled (e.g. Seveso II) and also the requirements of ISO 14001, EMAS, BS 8800, Responsible Care and other codes to enable a certification or approval according to these systems. Translation keys to other systems are provided. The guideline also gives advice on how to develop and implement SHE management systems.

As a mirror of the SHE management system a Guideline for internal auditing of Safety/Health/Environment has also been developed. Besides the use to verify and judge a SHE management system it could also be used for an initial assessment or just for a general auditing versus good operations and engineering standards. The model could be used both for self-assessment and for independent auditing.

In the model over 140 various company activities are assessed in a semi-quantitative way on a 10-grade scale. By giving in the assessment tool, key requirements for various level of performance it is easy to assess the actual performance. The model has been used extensively in Sweden and also internationally and found very efficient. The SHE audit method is already published in an English version, whereas the SHE management system is going to be published shortly by the European Process Safety Centre. There is also an Responsible Care verification tool, so far only in Swedish.

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