The Development of
HS&E Management Systems at Rolls-Royce

Looking ahead, the integration of HS&E into the Rolls-Royce Business process model is ongoing with the eventual aim to fully integrate everything that is done across the whole business, explains John Doidge

 

Overview
As a U.K. based company, Rolls- Royce has naturally been influenced by the development of Health, Safety and Environmental (HS&E) Management thinking with a U.K perspective. In 1991, the Health and Safety Executive published their guide ‘Successful Health and Safety Management’ (HSG 65). They had researched organizations that had been able to demonstrate successful health and safety performance and drawn links with the approach to quality management. HSG 65 pro-posed a model for safety management closely related to the TQM model for continuous improvement. Debate began into the benefit in publishing a British Standard on safety management systems and so BSI established a committee (HS/1) to look into the possibility. The HS/1 committee set out plans for the development of BS 8750 that was to be the safety equivalent to the environmental management system BS 7750 (latterly ISO 14000). Concern about the value of producing a further standard that would be seen as a burden on industry particularly in a field were there was a significant amount of legislation led BSI’s committee to water down their proposed standard. Published in 1996 they described the publication ‘Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems’ BS 8800 as ‘guidance only’. The original HSG 65 model was now being presented in an alternative format that was more closely aligned to the continuous improvement model given in ISO 14001. The market place for certification has grown over the last decade and so the certifying bodies, which are commercial businesses after all, seized on the financial opportunity of assessing against a safety management management system standard. BS 8800 clearly states that it should not be used for certification purposes and so there was a need to publish a new document and in 1999, OHSAS 18001 was published and then a year later OHSAS 18002 was published as a guide in support of its predecessor. At present BSI’s HS/1 committee has taken no action toward upgrading OHSAS 18001 to an ISO standard. In 2000, the quality management system standard was updated and is now published as ISO 9001:2000. The model had moved to closely resemble that for both the environmental and health and safety management system models thereby setting the ground for an integrated approach to the management of all three disciplines. The International Labour Office (established by the UN) assembled a committee of experts to investigate the benefits of an international management system standard and their report (April 20010) promotes a model for safety management that is broadly in line with all of the standards discussed in this paper. The American National Standards Institute set up a committee (Z10) to draft a standard along very similar lines.

OHSAS 18001 and MS.01
This ‘standard’ identifies the main headings under which a health and safety management system should be developed. The OHSAS 18001 model is of course intended to bear a resemblance to ISO 14001 so as to promote thinking towards an integrated HS&E management system. The ultimate consideration will be to develop a system that encompasses health, safety, environment and quality. Similarities with the Rolls- Royce HS&E standard MS.01 are clear. The similarities are considered in more detail in Table 1 where the main elements of both standards are listed and compared.

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