QUALITY STANDARDS - ISO 9000:2000

Each full CRA specialist contractor, product manufacturer and distributor member has been obliged to be Q.A. Accredited to ISO 9000:2000 for a number of years.

The Association is now working towards ensuring that all full member companies become BS EN 14001 (Environmental Standard) accredited and BS OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health & Safety Assessment Series) by the end of 2011.

From these dates, compliance to 14001 and 18001 will become a fundamental requirement for membership, which is another reason why clients and engineers should specify a CRA member for such specialist construction work.

BS EN ISO 14001 specifies the requirements for an environmental management system (EMS).  It provides a framework around which an organisation can control the environmental impacts of its activities, products and services and to continually improve its environmental performance.   Thus, it applies to those environmental aspects that the organisation can control and over which it can be expected to have an influence.  

BS EN ISO 14001 is applicable to any organisation that wishes to:

1. Implement, maintain and improve an environmental management system
2. Assure itself of its conformance with its stated environmental policy
3. Demonstrate such conformance to others
4. Seek certification/registration of its environmental management system by an external organisation
5. Make a self-determination and self-declaration of conformance with this international standard.

ISO (OHSAS) 18001 is the internationally recognised assessment specification for occupational health and safety management systems.   It was developed by a group of leading trade bodies, together with ISO, to address the lack of a viable third-party certifiable international standard and is designed to work alongside ISO 9001 (Quality) and ISO 14001 (Environmental).    ISO (OHSAS) 18001 allows a business to constantly identify and manage its health & safety risks, reducing the potential for accidents and to aid compliance with legislation, thus improving overall performance and promoting a safe and healthy working environment.

In today's uncertain and highly competitive marketplace every company needs to demonstrate that it is managed efficiently and responsibly and that it is able to provide a dependable service without unnecessary downtime caused by work-related ill-health, injury and incidents; hence the emergence of BS EN 14001 and now, BS (OHSAS) 18001.