MIT
fine-tunes the EHS Management System Manual and web site
Since MIT first published its Environment, Health and Safety
Management System (EHS-MS) Manual in October 2004, the system
has continued to grow, some new processes have been adopted,
and new components of the system have been brought online.
As MIT prepares for our spring 2006 audit of the management
system by outside auditors, we've reviewed the manual to
update the current roles, responsibilities, procedures and
practices that resulted from system improvements and changes,
and to identify those that are required to support system
sustainability.
The resulting EHS-MS Manual updates published on March
20, 2006 are primarily focused in the Roles and Responsibilities
section of the manual (Section
2), with a few additions or clarifications in other
sections of the manual. Some of these changes are:
- Section 2.2.1 - the
PI/Supervisor acts as an EHS Representative when s/he
hasn't assigned an EHS Representative;
- Section 2.2.2 - a Department,
Lab or Center (DLC) has an option of EHS Committee comprised
of Dept. Head as Chair, DLC EHS Coordinator as Co-chair
and the EHS Lead Contact; in such cases, the meetings
held during Level II inspections fulfill annual requirement.
In addition, records of DLC EHS Committee’s annual
meetings must be retained by the EHS Coordinator;
- Section 2.2.2 - DLC
must have an annual meeting of its EHS Representatives
with the EHS Coordinator and the EHS Office Lead Contact,
and keep a record of this meeting;
- Section 2.3 - the role
of the Environmental Programs / EHS Headquarters Office
in representing the
system sustainability requirements to senior management;
- Section 2.3 - EHS Office’s
support for DLCs who don't currently have a DLC EHS Coordinator;
- Section 3.1 - updated
Compliance Management Plan;
- Section 4.5.3 -
requirement for departments labs and work areas to perform
semi-annual training data validation to identify those
who either incorrectly select the PI/Supervisor or DLC
when they took their online Training Needs Assessment,
or are no longer affiliated with these labs or work areas;
- Section 6.1.1 - clarification
on weekly Level 1 lab self-inspections of any area that
has satellite accumulation areas.
It also became clear that we outgrew the October 2004 design
of the MIT EHS-MS home page. It didn't allow users to quickly
link to key information, documentation, and components of
the system, nor did it allow us to readily add new links.
So we have changed the home page on http://web.mit.edu/ehs-ms so that it now
has 3 sets of links and a dropdown "Quick Links"
menu:
- Information & Policies – providing direct
links to the seven sections of the EHS-MS Manual;
- Technology, Tools and Supporting Documents
– providing links to the online technology components
of the system and associated tools and documentation.
This includes a streamlined and simplified "Technology
and Tools" page now entitled "Technology Page";
- News & Spotlights – providing an area
to communicate key information about EHS-MS Awareness
or events; and
- QUICK LINKS –
a dropdown menu with a set of links to the most commonly
accessed pages of the system, including request forms,
directories, and MSDS search.
In addition to updating the EHS-MS Manual, we have conducted
our annual review and update of the set of EHS standard
operating procedures (SOPs), standard operating guidelines
(SOGs), and fact sheets. A number of SOPs were recently
updated, including some referenced in the EHS-MS Manual:
And new SOPs/SOGs/Fact Sheets have been added in the past
six months:
For a complete list of SOPs, SOGs, and Fact Sheets, go
to the SOPs web page: http://web.mit.edu/environment/ehs/topic/sops.html
We hope these improvements and updates help you with your
EHS requirements and concerns related to your work or study
at MIT. If you have any questions or suggestions for further
improvements, please contact the EHS Office by sending email
to environment@mit.edu
or calling 2-3477 M-F 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
