Environmental, Safety, and Quality Management Systems! Is There Common Ground?, 2002 Environmental Conference Proceedings

D. R. Raymond and J. Eid

Do you face having separate management approaches for safety, quality, and environmental compliance while meeting customer commitments? Striving to perfect the management style for addressing these areas corporately, divisionally, and locally has occupied much of the business development literature for more than two decades. A solid environmental management system helps assure meeting regulatory, customer, employee, and stakeholder expectations. The environmental management system is often developed as a stand-alone system; and the synergy of alignment with safety, quality, and the company's vision is lost. To deliver continuing improvement, any environmental management system must target minimizing environmental impacts at the mill, plant, or operator level. This same concept is necessary for a successful Quality or Safety management system. However, mill operators cannot afford the substantial investment in several parallel approaches. Their resources are best utilized and their commitment best obtained by concurrently embracing the elements of successful Environmental, Quality, and Safety Management in a single system aligned with the corporate vision. From a serious evaluation of the overall management style of any business, we may forge a common core approach. Here is how to build an interlocking triangulated operational philosophy.