EMS Teams
Implementation of an EMS may likely involve some shift in the organization’s management culture, priorities, and procedures. The experience of organizations developing EMSs as well as TUR planners has generally been that the makeup and level of commitment of the EMS Team is critical to developing a system that achieves the facility’s environmental and worker health and safety goals and continual improves performance. This team should include personnel from a variety of areas throughout the organization, including management, human resources, production (including operators), product design, quality, environmental health and safety, purchasing, engineering, maintenance, research, etc.
A critical team member is the EMS Team Coordinator. The roles, responsibilities and authorities of this position need to be clearly defined. The characteristics of the EMS Team Coordinator are that of “champion” and management representative. A champion is a person (or persons) who can oversee the program implementation, communicate the results to management, and provide effective team leadership. The EMS Team Coordinator’s ability to have access to and communicate with upper management is important. Not only will this person be responsible for conveying the information gained through the implementation of the EMS, but will also be responsible for securing appropriate resources required to fully implement the elements of the EMS. The EMS Coordinator may also provide the EMS team with instruction on the principles of the EMS structure and training as needed. With the team, the EMS Coordinator should also be responsible for developing a preliminary action plan detailing the steps necessary for establishing an EMS. This plan should identify the necessary procedures, specify activities needed to address existing issues, target and prioritize issues, and identify steps necessary to prevent potential issues.
After the EMS is implemented, an EMS Oversight Team or Committee must be defined to guide the day-to-day operation of the EMS. This typically involves, for example, administering the internal audit program, approving corrective actions, tracking progress on objectives, reviewing and updating documents, and reporting results and recommendations for continual improvement to management review. Typically, this team or committee will consist of some of the same participants that served on the Implementation Team. Recognize that existing committees (quality, safety, etc.) can be efficiently used to carry out these EMS functions; it is also likely they may already doing so. For this reason, it is important to include this representation on the EMS Team. It is generally understood within the field of management systems that the EMS Team Coordinator should remain fixed for at least the first several years in order to assure continuity, encourage learning and maximize continual improvement within the system. However, other team members may be added or rotated over time.
This page updated Wednesday July 21 2004