In the past, Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) at my company has been audited along with every other department area in the building. A new QA manager, only recently trained to the standard, wants to eliminate auditing EHS at our company by simply indicating and defining EHS as being performed under and controlled (audited)by outside agencies (for example, Federal and State agencies for Environmental, OSHA and other regulatory agencies)and that this is how we answer the standard requirements for 6.3 and 6.4. The manager uses specifically uses --6.2.2 "The organization shall determine the necessary competence for personnel performing work affecting product quality"---to support the idea that since EHS doesn't "touch" the product, it doesn't need any documentation in our Quality Management System (QMS), and therefore, no training (under the standard requirements) needs to be performed, etc..... The idea is to let Safety run its own programs and training completely apart from the QMS and have enforcement come from outside or upper level (Corporate EHS)internal agencies.
Please note, in the past, our registrar has always asked to see forklift certifications for drivers, has tested forklifts to see if their backup lights work, etc.
Please also note that the industry that we are in produces filtration elements--not a "safety" type product.
I am a little concerned about moving forward in the direction this manager wants to go--Can you help? Does this make sense and further--can we do this? We have a 9001:2000 certification. Thanks.
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Comments
dld 8/10/2001
In general, your recognition process matches those I am familiar with in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Awards for achievement need not be extravagant but they should be worth showing. Money need not be part of the recognition system. It is not personal enough and has no sentimental value. Common examples of awards are: pins and rings, plaques, certificates or lunch with the company president or other high ranking executive. The lunch option becomes even more special if the employee's spouse is included. Other awards include write-ups in the company newspaper, trips to the customer, and attendance at a seminar or conference.
Awards should be presented in public and by all means, give the recipient the opportunity for a brief response. It is usually emotional and well worth the time.
The presentation ceremony should be photographed and video taped and provided to the award winners as well as used for publicity purposes. I hope these ideas help.