Who founded the occupational health and safety assessment series?

The Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS 18000) was developed by a number of national and international standards development organizations, certification bodies, and consulting organizations when the International Organization for Standards (ISO) was unable to create a consensus to move forward on the development of an occupational health and safety management standard to parallel the existing Quality and Environmental Management standards. The designating number 18000 had already been reserved by ISO for this standard, but opposition from within the US prevented development within the ISO system.

The core of the series is OHSAS 18001, a specific standard for occupational health and safety management systems. OHSAS 18001 is designed to be compatible with ISO 9001 (Quality Management) and ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) systems.

Organizations involved in developing the OHSAS 18000 series include:

• National Standards Authority of Ireland
• Standards Australia
• South African Bureau of Standards
• British Standards Institution
• Bureau Veritas Quality International
• Det Norske Veritas
• Lloyds Register Quality Assurance
• National Quality Assurance
• SFS Certification
• SGS Yarsley International Certification Services
• International Safety Management Organisation Ltd
• Standards and Industry Research Institute of Malaysia
• International Certification Services