Poulida,Olga and  Constantinou, Leonidas

Frederick Research Center, Nicosia Cyprus

Development of an Integrated Management System in a Small and Medium-size oil Industry:  Safety, Energy and Environment

Introduction

Organisations of all kinds are increasingly concerned to achieve and demonstrate sound environmental performance, competitive safety record and effective energy conservation and loss programs.  Many managers, however, have the tendency to rationalise the problems in environment, safety and energy.  In fact, they focus on the inappropriate act of others and they avoid blaming themselves.  According to studies that were presented in the literature, as few as 15% of a company's problems can be controlled by employees.  At the same time, as much as 85% of these problems can be controlled only by management.  In other words, most issues related to environment, safety and energy are management issues.

The role of management systems is even more important in Small and Medium Enterprises [1].  The limited resources of those companies and the focus on day-to-day issues, neglecting often the long-term advantages of strategic planning, makes necessary a systematic and effective approach in management aspects, that is, it is imperative the development and implementation of management systems.

In the present paper, an integrated management system will be developed of three interrelated areas in the oil industry: safety, energy and environment.  As it will be discussed below, integrated management systems have mainly covered, quality and environment, or safety and environment.  Therefore, the innovative element of this work is the integration of the aforementioned areas under the same management system.

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