Lam Thye says Ohsas 18001 to be replaced with ISO 45001 this year
MIRI: Local and foreign organisations operating in the country should be prepared for the implementation of ISO 45001, which is the world’s first international standard for occupational health and safety (OH& S) management.
The International Organisation for Standardisation ( ISO) 45001 is expected to replace the widelyused British Standard for Occupational Health and Safety management (Ohsas 18001). There will be an agreed migration period to the new standard.
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health ( Niosh) chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the ISO 45001 is in the final stage of formulation and is expected to be introduced this year.
The ISO 45001, which was proposed in March 2013, had undergone various stages in five meetings in London, Casablanca, Trinidad, Geneva and Mississauga.
Its draft was presented and deliberated among stakeholders at the sixth meeting in Malacca in September last year.
“The standard is being developed by a committee of occupational health and safety experts and will follow other generic management system approaches such as ISO 14001 and ISO 9001.
“It will take into account other international standards in this area such as Ohsas 18001, the International Labour Organisation’s OSH Guidelines, various national standards and the ILO’s international labour standards and conventions,” said Lee after opening the ISO 45001 seminar here yesterday.
Themed ‘OSH Management System: Moving Ahead with ISO 45001’, the one- day seminar was jointly organised by Niosh Certification Sdn Bhd (NCSB) and TM Tec Academy ( M) Sdn Bhd. It was attended by more than 100 participants from in and around Miri.
Similar to Ohsas 18001, which was launched in 1999, Lee said ISO 45001 is aimed at aligning the range of national health and safety management standards into one to reduce confusion and market fragmentation.
He said ISO 45001 standard could help organisations manage their workplace so that people would not get injured or suffer from ill-health issues at work.
At present, he said organisations in Malaysia were adopting the Ohsas 18001 and Malaysian Standard ( MS 1722) for their occupational safety and health management system (OSHMS).
“Occupational safety and health are global issues and the ISO records show that more than 7,600 people died of accidents at workplace or due to workrelated illnesses daily. In total, almost 2.8 million people died of occupational accident and illness every year,” he pointed out.
Lee said the implementation of OSH management system would bring a lot of benefits not only to the organisations but also to the workers and the local community.
“It will also help protect the environment in our pursuit to develop the country,” he said.
With the management system in place, he said the organisations involved could monitor, assess and improve the OSH management aspect through a more systematic and efficient approach.
Based on the statistics issued by Standards Malaysia, he said 1,137 organisations had already acquired the MS 1722 and Ohsas 18001 certifications for OSH management system.
He said NCSB, which is a whollyowned subsidiary of Niosh, also provides auditing and certification services for OSH Management Systems ( MS 1722 and Ohsas 18001) and for Environmental Management System ( ISO 14001), Quality Management System (ISO 9001), Food Safety Management System (ISO 22000) and Malaysian Sustainability Palm Oil ( MSPO) Certification.
Also present were Piasau assemblyman Datuk Sebastian Ting, NCSB board of directors member Nik Hasbi Fathi Nik Husain Fathi, NCSB general manager Syamsul Zahrin Zainudin, Johor Department of Safety and Health (DOSH) director Ir Saiful Azhar Mohd Said and TM Tec Academy (M) Sdn Bhd director Lawrence Lee Chin Fook.