Overview

A global electronics and systems group serving the defence, aerospace, security and services market, Thales Group formed through a series of rapid mergers and buy-outs. Employing around 9,000 people of which three-quarters are involved in engineering work across 60 sites, Thales UK has a wide range of health and safety issues.These range from lasers, high voltage works and plating plants through to stress, working at height and business travel, it became apparent the benefits that could be gained from more standardised practices.

With this in mind, the Environment, Health and Safety team at Thales UK received board approval in 2003 to take on the remit for health and safety. The task that lay in front of them was to establish health and safety policies, assist in implementation of occupational health and safety management systems and roll-out of the OHSAS 18001 certification programme group-wide.

The first challenge lay in understanding the processes and procedures already existing within the operating companies and make use of best practice that had been developed.

As a first step in understanding the culture and practices existing, Thales UK undertook a widescale review throughout its operating companies. This confirmed the need for greater health and safety management to ensure that risks were being adequately managed and that compliance with legislation could be demonstrated.

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Why adopt OHSAS 18001?

The majority of Thales UK companies were already certified to both the quality and environmental management system standards, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 – therefore well used to the discipline of working within the structure of a certified management system.

It was therefore logical to work towards implementing an OHS management system for certification to OHSAS 18001. Implemented company-wide this would have the significant benefit of helping ensure consistency throughout each of the operating companies.

Certification to this recognised health and safety standard would also complement and strengthen the company’s code of ethics. This code was developed by the Group to help underpin its operations, and focuses on the protection of its employees, visitors and the public.

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Strategy: how we set about it

It was recognised from the beginning that the corporate Environment, Health and Safety team would need the appropriate resource and support to help the operating companies in implementing their systems and gaining certification.

Russell Hobbs of Thales UK was brought in as a specialist to head up the EHS team and to direct the programme of change necessary to ensure consistency of health and safety management across the group. As a first step, the team undertook a health and safety review to establish areas needing improvement looking at areas such as risk assessments, visibility of health and safety issues at senior management level, trained personnel on site. Following this initial audit, a recommendation was made for OHSAS 18001.

Individuals were identified at each business unit. This ensured each company had a competent health and safety person on site that had detailed knowledge of the hazards present within their own organisation. It was recognised for the initiative to fully succeed, each business unit needed to buy-in to the OHSAS concept. To help in this, the EHS team developed a programme of training and development sessions for the health and safety representatives and awareness sessions aimed at the management teams at each business unit.

Having gone through the process of ISO 14001 certification in 2003, the EHS team were keenly aware of the need to develop good working relationships with their certification bodies early on. “One of my first jobs in starting the programme was to talk to LRQA. To start to build a collaborative relationship, to ensure they understood our methodologies in use and for us to benefit from their expertise,” comments Russell.

“We found the LRQA assessment team very supportive in attending seminars, in reviewing the OHSAS toolkit we were preparing and in helping set up scopes for registrations. It was very much a two-way process.”

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OHSAS 18001 Toolkit

An integral part of the strategy was the creation of a 20-stage ‘toolkit.’ Developed in partnership with an external OHS consultancy, Harrington Morgan, the aim of the toolkit was to provide a staged practical guide for health and safety co-ordinators regarding the design, implementation and management of an occupational health and safety management system.

Comprising four main phases, the toolkit contains a series of procedures, template forms and a register of health and safety legislation providing guidance on health and safety legal compliance. The advantage of this approach is that Health and Safety Co-ordinators have more time to focus on controlling health and safety risks at their sites.

Mike Winter, Health and Safety Co-Ordinator at Thales UK’s Research & Technology Centre explains:
“We have had strong health and safety processes from day one in our business however many were self generated. As part of a larger group of companies, it makes sense to standardise where possible. This is where the toolkit helps in introducing a consistency – which means when moving people from site to site, they are familiar with the processes used.”

“The toolkit provides a useful record. Once we have customised the checklists to suit the specific needs of our business, we rolled out to our engineering managers to complete their own risk assessments. Once they had understood the terminology used, it has proved a useful tool,” Mike concludes.

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20-stage route to OHSAS 18001 certification

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Training and Communications

If the systems were to be successfully implemented, it was vital that employees were given the appropriate training and support throughout. A thorough and in-depth training programme was developed to include a structured set of workshops, seminars and courses with the aim of guiding key staff – typically the health and safety co-ordinators - through the OHSAS process.

The training programme is phased to complement the 20-staged route map meaning the delegates could receive relevant training at appropriate points. The training programme included OHSAS 18001 implementation & OHSAS 18001 auditing courses, which also included specific instruction on key parts of the toolkit. Various training methods are also used at these events, including, guest speakers, facilitated discussions, lecture style presentations, taught training courses and workshops.

Individual competencies of health and safety co-ordinators were also enhanced to match the level of risk associated with their particular site. At lower-risk sites, this meant co-ordinators having the NEBOSH Certificate while co-ordinators on high-risk sites having the NEBOSH Diploma. In addition, a number of specialist courses were also organised to provide additional complimentary skills, where required. Competency requirements for individual companies are reviewed on an annual basis.

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Working with LRQA

LRQA has been working with Thales UK for over five years initially on the organisation’s quality and then later environmental management system certification programmes. This relationship continued when Thales UK decided to follow a similar route with its occupational health and safety management systems.

“Working closely with our account manager has been good all round – it’s eased the implementation of the OHSAS programme in our operating companies and also helped in identifying areas for improvement. In addition, the LRQA brand is well known and respected by Thales UK’s operating companies and our customers around the world,” Russell Hobbs.

“We have a very ‘open’ and transparent relationship with Thales UK. For example, we’ve been involved in their committee meetings looking at health and safety plans in advance of their new purpose built facility opening in Crawley. This means our audit teams will be well prepared and make best use of their time in the initial audits on-site,” comments Kevin Smith, LRQA Account Manager.

The Thales Group

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Page last modified on 07 February 2007

Article can be found online at:
http://www.lrqa.co.uk/help/casestudies/thales/

Care is taken to ensure that the information herein is accurate and up-to-date. However, LRQA accepts no responsibility for inaccuracies in, or changes to, such information.

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