ISO14 -- Setting the Standard in Environmental Management

People in your organization probably use various documents (procedures, work instructions, forms, drawings and the like) as they perform their duties. To ensure that personnel are consistently performing their jobs in the right way, the organization must provide them with the proper tools. In the context of an EMS, the "tools" needed are correct and up-to-date procedures, instructions and other documents. Without a mechanism to manage these EMS documents, the organization cannot be sure that people are working with the right tools.

To ensure that everyone is working with the proper EMS documents, your organization should have a procedure that describes how such documents are controlled. Implementation of this procedure should ensure that:

EMS documents can be located

They are periodically reviewed

Current versions are available when and where needed

Obsolete documents are removed

Your procedure should designate responsibility and authority for preparing documents, making changes to them and keeping them up-to-date. In other words, you need to make it clear who can actually generate and change documents and the process for doing so.

Step: 10 of 17