What Is OHSAS 18001? What is a Management System?

What Is OHSAS 18001?

OHSAS 18001 is a specification document (standard) that sets out requirements for establishing and implementing an occupational health and safety management system.

It was originally developed in 1999 by an independent group of national standards organizations and certification bodies.  Although it is not an ISO standard, OHSAS 18001 is structured the same way as ISO 14001, the environmental management system standard, and has essentially the same elements.  It was developed specifically for use in third-party certification.

OHSAS 18001 was developed to replace a number of registrar-specific OH&S specification documents and to serve as a model for developing an international standard.  Its development was initially driven by the lack of consensus for moving ahead in developing an international standard through the ISO standard-setting process.

What is a Management System?

Since OHSAS 18001 is intended to set a framework for an OH&S management system — like ISO 14001 sets a framework for an environmental management system and ISO 9001 sets a framework for a quality management system — it is probably worthwhile to explore just what a “management system” is.

To enjoy standard-setting is to enjoy defining terms.

There are a variety of ways you can go about deciding what something is.  You can ask an expert, you can ask several experts, you can take an opinion survey or you can look it up in a dictionary. 

A Dictionary Definition

If one approaches this as a tautological exercise, one can break the term “management system” into its component parts of “management” and “system,” define each and then combine the two definitions back together again into a single definition for a “management system.”

Using this approach, one can define the word “management” as the act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control and the word “system” as a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.  Combining these definitions, one gets the following definition for a “management system” — the act of managing a group of interacting, interrelated or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.  This is a traditional, and predictable, definition.

On the other hand, by combining a different set of definitions for “management” and “system”, one can get the following, entirely different, definition — a social, economic or political organizational form used by corporate power elites who are distinguished primarily by their distance from actual productive work and their chronic failure to manage. For those who appreciate Dilbert cartoons, this may represent a more “real world” definition of a “management system.”

Using a different approach, one can seek to determine what a management system is by examining the definitions penned by the individuals who drafted the ISO management system standards.
The ISO Definition of a “Management System”
ANSI/ISO/ASQ ISO Q9000-2000 defines a “management system” as follows — a system (separately defined as a set of interrelated or interacting elements) to establish policy and objectives and to achieve those objectives.  A “quality management system” is then defined as a management system to direct and control an organization with regard to quality.
ISO 14001:2004 defines a “management system” as a set of interrelated elements used to establish policy and objectives and to achieve those objectives and an “environmental management system” as follows — part of an organization’s management system used to develop and implement its environmental policy and manage its environmental aspects.
What is interesting about these ISO definitions is their explicit focus on defining a management system in terms of the task of “establishing policy and objectives”  (ISO 9000) or “developing and implementing a policy” (ISO 14001).  This focus on establishing and implementing policy is not part of any of the dictionary definitions for management.
The OHSAS 18001 Definition
OHSAS 18001:1999 defines an “OH&S management system” as follows — part of the overall management system that facilitates the management of the OH&S risks associated with the business of the organization.  With the 2007 revision of OHSAS 18001, the definition of an OH&S management system will be aligned with the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 definitions to focus on developing and implementing policy.