EXPERTISE AND INSIGHTS
Management Systems (ISO)
You can employ effective management systems to control quality, environment, safety, data security and other aspects of your activities. ISO standards give you a powerful Plan:Do:Check:Act process to reach your goals.
- PLAN: determine what you want to accomplish and the steps you should take to achieve these goals
- DO: the procedures you should follow and who should implement them
- CHECK: monitor that things are happening they way you want
- ACT: review and evaluate the results you are getting and decide what needs to be changed
These systems will work best when you develop them as a joint effort, together with all levels of the organization - from top management, through program directors to line workers. Each will contribute from their expert knowledge of what needs to be done and how to do it, and the buy-in you get will be much more enthusiastic. This brings a common commitment to the vision, the policy, and the details of implementation.
Quality Management Systems (QMS)
Quality management is the discipline of enhancing customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements
- What do they want and what do they expect from you?
- How can you deliver on that?
- What do you need in order to deliver? – resources (materials, time, facility, energy) and personnel
ISO 9001, the international standard for quality management, is a PDCA process based on these foundations
- Customer Requirements
- Risks and Opportunities
- Controls on Inputs and Outputs
- Communication and Information
- Tracking Performance
- Continuous Improvement
Quality Management Systems (QMS)
Quality management is the discipline of enhancing customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements
- What do they want and what do they expect from you?
- How can you deliver on that?
- What do you need in order to deliver? – resources (materials, time, facility, energy) and personnel
ISO 9001, the international standard for quality management, is a PDCA process based on these foundations
- Customer Requirements
- Risks and Opportunities
- Controls on Inputs and Outputs
- Communication and Information
- Tracking Performance
- Continuous Improvement
Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
Environmental management is the discipline of balancing environment, society, economy to meet the needs of the present without compromising ability to meet future needs
- How your activities affect the environment and how the environment affects you
- With what requirements must you comply (compliance obligations)?
ISO 14001, the international standard for environmental management, requires you to identify the activities, products and services that you can control and influence, and determine their significant environmental impacts, considering a life cycle perspective.
You must the identify the risks and opportunities associated with the environmental impacts and your compliance obligations, and plan actions to reduce the risks and meet those obligations. Tracking, monitoring and continuous improvement round out the PDCA system.
Standard Development
In order to be effective, standards have to be rigorous enough to fulfill their purpose, yet practical and affordable enough so that they can be implemented in their market. They could be
- consensus standards, intended to reflect the current practice in the market
- leadership standards, intended to identify the top ~25% of currently available offerings, preferable to the majority of alternatives
- aspirational standards, intended to describe where the market should be, even if it cannot be achieved today
The most successful standards are those who are informed by the broadest selection of stakeholders and interests: manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, trade groups, purchasers, health groups, environmental NGOs, and more.
Successful engagement of stakeholders is an art form, that requires careful listening and explaining, establishing clear goals for the process and expectations for the standards, mutual respect for each other and for scientific facts, and creative solutions.
Standard Development
In order to be effective, standards have to be rigorous enough to fulfill their purpose, yet practical and affordable enough so that they can be implemented in their market. They could be
- consensus standards, intended to reflect the current practice in the market
- leadership standards, intended to identify the top ~25% of currently available offerings, preferable to the majority of alternatives
- aspirational standards, intended to describe where the market should be, even if it cannot be achieved today
The most successful standards are those who are informed by the broadest selection of stakeholders and interests: manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, trade groups, purchasers, health groups, environmental NGOs, and more.
Successful engagement of stakeholders is an art form, that requires careful listening and explaining, establishing clear goals for the process and expectations for the standards, mutual respect for each other and for scientific facts, and creative solutions.
Auditing and Certification
Not everyone has the knowledge and resources to know what are best practices, and whether they are actually followed.
Deciding what actually represents environmental leadership in a given market or situation is a challenging task. Setting standards requires a detailed study of
- Significant impacts on human health and environment
- Adequate functional performance (do the products work?)
- Benchmarking against current practice in the market
Once the criteria that represent leadership have been determined, how can we be certain that they are actually being met? An independent third party can verify that in an audit, and grant a certification demonstrating that the criteria have been met.
Certification bodies that are themselves supervised in a peer evaluation or accreditation are considered to be more credible.
Environmental and Analytical Chemistry
The fate and transport of chemicals in the environment determine their ultimate impacts on human health and the environment. They travel as gases, liquids or solids, are transformed by oxygen, sunlight and water or interactions with each other.
The understanding of these processes ultimately depends on reliable and meaningful measurements.
- Monitors, instruments that conduct continuous or nearly-continuous measurements and provide information as numbers that reflect concentrations
- Samplers collect portions of a substance (water, soil, airborne particles) to be analyzed later, either on site (if you're lucky) or in an offsite lab
- Remote Sensing can provide measurements of substances at a distance, usually measuring the absorbance pattern of some form of light
Credible measurements depend on calibration of these instruments, validation of methods and sample handling, and data quality measures. Without them, all this work is meaningless and valid conclusions cannot drawn.
Environmental and Analytical Chemistry
The fate and transport of chemicals in the environment determine their ultimate impacts on human health and the environment. They travel as gases, liquids or solids, are transformed by oxygen, sunlight and water or interactions with each other.
The understanding of these processes ultimately depends on reliable and meaningful measurements.
- Monitors, instruments that conduct continuous or nearly-continuous measurements and provide information as numbers that reflect concentrations
- Samplers collect portions of a substance (water, soil, airborne particles) to be analyzed later, either on site (if you're lucky) or in an offsite lab
- Remote Sensing can provide measurements of substances at a distance, usually measuring the absorbance pattern of some form of light
Credible measurements depend on calibration of these instruments, validation of methods and sample handling, and data quality measures. Without them, all this work is meaningless and valid conclusions cannot drawn.