ISO Guide 83 - A revolution for Management System Standards?

Stephen Asbury, our Managing Director and a widely-published author on management systems and auditing, introduces a new ISO guide which is set to impact all management system standards

Standards users who have adopted standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 and have successfully implemented them into their organization may not have heard of ISO Guide 83 – but this new document is likely to impact on all management system standards when published (expected Spring 2012?). Once in use, this guide could revolutionize the way that management system standards are written. While this might sound alarming, it will make life simpler in the long term. If this sounds interesting, then read on…

Guide 83 is not a standard, but a guide to help standards developers write management systems standards.  It was circulated for review by the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in September 2011 and supported by a majority of ISO members. It provides a high-level structure and common text for all management system standards (MSS). It was developed in response to standard users’ criticism that, while current standards have many common components, they are not sufficiently aligned, making it difficult for organizations to rationalise their systems and to interface and integrate them.

Guide 83 was developed by the Joint Technical Coordination Group, set up by ISO with representatives drawn from its technical committees dealing with major management systems standards.

Once in use, all new and revised MSS could have the same architecture and use the same language and clause structure in areas common to all the standards. Despite the common approach, Guide 83 allows sufficient flexibility to incorporate unique components for different disciplines, by allowing additional text to be incorporated in a structured manner. The need for requirements, with respect to customer focus in any ISO 9001 revision and issues such as prevention of pollution in any ISO 14001 revision, will be accommodated in this manner.

Arguments about the ‘process’ approach versus ‘plan, do, check, act’ (PDCA) have also been overcome by using a framework that is compatible with both approaches without using either model.

Although the revision of standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 in the new format will take some years, other standards will appear sooner; for example, ISO 27001 on information security and ISO 39001 on road traffic safety, have followed the approach given in Guide 83 as they have been developed. Organisations with well-developed and effective systems should not have any problem with the new approach and may find it a breath of fresh air.

There are new items in the guide, in particular, greater emphasis on top management, its role, and the need to understand the context of the organization. The overall framework is provided below:

1. Scope
2. Normative references
3. Terms and definitions
4. Context of the organization
5. Leadership
6. Planning
7. Support
8. Operation
9. Performance evaluation
10. Improvement.
    

Clause 4 is interesting, and requires:

• understanding the organization and its context (4.1)
• understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties (4.2)
• determining the scope of the management system (4.3)
• X management system (4.4), where ‘X’ denotes where the specific discipline is included within the common text – e.g. ‘quality’ for ISO 9001 and ‘environmental’ for ISO 14001.
  

Clause 5 clearly spells out what is expected of top management, no matter the discipline:

5.1 General: ‘Persons in top management and other relevant management roles throughout the organisation shall demonstrate leadership with respect to the X management system’.

Risk-based approach

One area that has been hotly debated within the committees charged with the responsibility for writing standards has been the use of the word ‘risk’. Some have thought the term should not be associated with some standards. Common sense seems to have prevailed and Clause 6.1 deals with ‘Actions to address risks and opportunities’ and follows with ‘Objectives and plans to achieve them’ under clause 6.2. All the requirements that relate to documents and records are dealt with in 7.5.

The standard writers are hopeful that this new document will address the concerns expressed over many years, about a perception (real or otherwise) that there was conflict and unnecessary duplication in the various MSS. It is not yet known yet whether the guide will be mandatory or how it will be applied.  British Standards Institution (BSi), following consultation with its management system committees, has submitted suggestions to ISO in the hope that this will help standards developers implement the guide effectively.

The next step will be for the development group to incorporate all the comments and suggestions for implementation from National Standard Bodies into a revised draft being prepared for discussion in February 2012 – it is expected that a final version will be ready for standards writers to use soon after that.

How these changes will affect standards outside the control of ISO such as OHSAS 18001 remains to be seen. Hopefully, these will follow the same route over time, so that consistency can be developed and maintained.

It is expected that PAS99 will be revised to reflect this new structure in order to help those with integrated systems to migrate with ease, as and when new standards are published.