How can you gain certification to environmental and health and safety standards with having overly-complex systems? That was the question asked by Print City, who were looking to gain certification to ISO 14001, the environmental management standard, OHSAS 18001, the health and safety management standard and FSC and PEFC, the two chain of custody standards. In addition, Print City wanted an integrated approach and wanted to avoid having different people coming in to provide outside help in each of the three areas. Furthermore, they wanted someone with print-related experience.
Because of a track record in helping companies gain certification to these and similar standards, Print City decided to use Strategic Safety Systems to help them.
Working with Gemma Brennan and her team at Print City, Phil Chambers of SSS proposed the strategy of gaining FSC and PEFC certification as the first step. This enabled Print City to gain certification to these standards, and to be able to provide this service quickly. Print City already had certification to ISO 9001, so the systems developed by Chambers for FSC and PEFC became part of this system and the bulk of the system comprised modification to existing 9001 procedures.
Following this, Chambers worked with Print City to provide systems to meet the requirements of 14001 and 18001.
Print City had a comprehensive set of records for health and safety issues, such as fire alarm tests, and Chambers was able to make reference to these in the health and safety parts of the new integrated system. Wherever possible, use was made of a computerised integrated action management system called INTACT, which Chambers provided, to avoid paperwork. In addition, systems were simple flowcharts, which represent a modern approach to such systems instead of complex text. In addition to system development, the services provided by Chambers included training of appropriate personnel.
Because the 14001 and 18001 systems were integrated, Print City were able to make cost savings in certification; logically, it works out cheaper to audit the combined system rather than separate systems.
Following the successful certification process, Print City have asked Chambers to rework their existing text-based 9001 system so that they end up with a single, simple, integrated system for all standards. In future, there will be a single surveillance audit for 9001, 14001 and 18001, though at present, FSC and PEFC must be audited separately. The changes to 9001 include the use of INTACT to cover customer feedback, which removes paperwork and provides management reports with no effort required.
Some other notes:
Many companies believe that systems for 9001, 14001 and 18001 involve masses of paperwork and require excessive manpower to run them. In the past, this may have been true, but done properly, systems can be simple, easy to understand and can be run without excessive effort.
The two keys to the approach taken are:
Both approaches win praise from certification bodies; the whole approach makes their life easier.
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