Integration of occupational health and safety, environmental and quality management system standards

Occupational health and safety, environmental, and quality (SEQ) issues are commonly managed by three separate departments within organizations. Because of a number of commonalities in the three management systems, there could be a degree of overlap that might lead to inefficiencies. By integrating these three management systems into one SEQ system, the duplication of effort could be minimized and the health and safety, environmental, and quality issues could be managed by one common proactive approach. The draft Australian standard for an occupational health and safety (OHS) management system and the internationally accepted standards for environmental (ISO 14001) and quality (ISO 9001) management systems were analyzed to identify all requirements of the three management systems and integrate this into one SEQ management system standard.