The first meeting of the Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) Z10 on Occupational Health and Safety Systems will take place next Thursday and Friday in Falls Church, Va.
ASC Z10 is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
The American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), the secretariat, will host the meeting.
The committee will be developing a voluntary, consensus American National Standard to help companies better manage their occupational safety and health performance.
The committee is chaired by Alan Leibowitz of ITT Defense and Electronics and vice-chaired by Jim Howe of the United Auto Workers International Union.
It has a six-member steering committee and 31 additional members representing industry, labor, government, general interest and professional organizations.
"Large and small organizations alike will benefit from uniform guidance for use in developing their environmental health and safety management systems," said Leibowitz.
The scope of ASC Z10 is to develop a standard of management principles and systems to help businesses design and implement deliberate and documented approaches to continuously improve their occupational health and safety (OHS) performance.
The committee hopes the standard will enable organizations to integrate OHS management into their overall business management systems.
The standard will be compatible with relevant OHS, environmental and quality management standards, such as ISO 14000, and with approaches to OHS management in common use in the United States.
by Virginia Sutcliffe