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ISO19011: 2012 – The New Auditing Standard
April 2nd, 2012ISO19011 the 2003 version has been replaced by the 2012 version.
This is the new standard known as the “Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems” document and is applicable to auditing amongst others the ISO9001, ISO14001 & OHSAS18001 management systems.
For the past 10 years auditors and lead auditors in the world have used the ISO19011 document as the benchmark for determining competence. With the continuing concern regarding the professionalism and competency of auditors the standard attempts to include and emphasize knowledge, skill and experience required to become an auditor or lead auditor.
Some key issues that changed between the first edition and this new one include:
The scope has been broadened from the auditing of quality and environmental management systems to the auditing of any management systems;
the relationship between ISO 19011 and ISO/IEC 17021 has been clarified;
remote audit methods and the concept of risk have been introduced;
confidentiality has been added as a new principle of auditing;
Clauses 5, 6 and 7 have been reorganized;
additional information has been included in a new Annex B, resulting in the removal of help boxes;
the competence determination and evaluation process has been strengthened;
illustrative examples of discipline-specific knowledge and skills have been included in a new Annex A
Previously the following criteria were used as a benchmark to determine competency of auditors and lead auditors (Table 1 on page 27 in the 2003 ISO19011 standard):
Ergonomic Considerations
May 23rd, 2011South African organisations need to realise that ergonomics is not another marketing tool, but a value added activity. Ergonomics will not solve all problems at work, but will establish intervention programmes to implement and support any technological or system changes.
Defining Ergonomics:
Various definitions or explanations of this term exists. The most common of these include:
The relationship between the employee, the task and the working environment
Human factor science or engineering
Man, machine and task – the effective safe, healthy and environmental friendly interaction between the three
Ergonomic considerations and requirements can find a place across all functions of any organisation.
When manually handling items in the workplace, employees should ask the following six questions in order to assess the risks related to their answers.
Must the load be moved?
If the load does not need to be moved – do not do it.
Must the load be lifted?
Rather assess whether the load can be slid, pushed, rolled, poured or moved in any other manner, before resorting to lifting.
Can the load be moved mechanically?