New risk management systems designed to improve operating practice
Today’s society is increasingly demanding that organisation be able to demonstrate a systematic, proactive assurance of the way they do business in regard to Quality, Safety and the Environment.
These pressures have resulted in numerous Management systems being implemented in a very short period of time, to satisfy the demands of potential customers (business, authorities etc).
The result often is that business have implemented systems that are not truly reflective of their operations and are very difficult to maintain.
It has been demonstrated that organisations primarily implement compliant Management Systems to ISO Standards (ISO 9000, ISO 14000) for three primary reasons :-
Unfortunately the third reason is the least likely reason a company will implement a Management System but should be the primary reason a company implements a Management System.
Organisation need to get a clear understanding that effective Management Systems themselves alone, can provide greater financial returns to the organisation that the marketing advantage of ISO certification or qualification to tendering by ISO compliance organizations should revise their Management systems to ensure they are truly reflective of their operations and are as effective and user friendly as possible.
This practice can have a significant effect on improving the overall management system culture of an organisation and improve the operating result.
Expert Comments
“Once the foundation of an effective management and control system has been established, the audit focus should shift to the actual processes involved and how management can use the audit process to achieve tangible benefits for the organisation.
An independent perspective combined with an inquiring and interactive approach in the operational areas can often be beneficial, and can be used as a tool to explore avenues for improvement.
In some cases, this approach can reveal significant shortcomings in the process sequences or inspection methodology, which, if effectively controlled and corrected can lead to substantial improvements in efficiencies, and reductions in the number of nonconforming product or service deliveries. This often leads to a direct and readily measurable cost benefit to the company.
Every organisation should ask itself what it wants to achieve from the certification process, and whether the exercise actually promotes improvements within the management and operational processes of the company.
A well-implemented and maintained management system should ultimately evolve into a mature and progressive work ethic, where lapses are freely and openly discussed at all levels and are seen as opportunities for learning and improvement.
In the final analysis, an effective management system must be able to show results by way of improved financial and operational parameters. In short, certification must yield real benefits to the organisation on a continuing basis”.
