Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) signs MoU with Taiwan Accreditation Foundation (TAF) to strengthen the quality of TOSHMS certification audit
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the Ministry of Labor and the Taiwan Accreditation Foundation (TAF) have joined hands to implement the Taiwan Occupational Safety and Health Management System (TOSHMS) Certification Bodies Accreditation Program in order to promote TOSHMS certification and accreditation system that is in line with national and international standards. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed today (the 12th of October) by the Director General of OSHA, Tzu Lien Tzou and the Chairman of TAF, Ching Chang Lien to initiate cooperation projects on the accreditation of certification bodies.
In order to assist enterprises to develop a systematic and standardized occupational safety and health management system, and internalize it as part of their business management, since 2008, the Ministry of Labor has been encouraging enterprises to adopt TOSHMS and pass the third-party certification, and so far, nearly 1,000 business units have received TOSHMS certification, said Director Tzou. In order to continuously improve the TOSHMS certification system, certification management expertise of TAF was used to encourage TOSHMS certification bodies to improve the quality of certification and auditing, and to enable TOSHMS-certified companies to obtain both the international standard ISO 45001 certificate and the domestic TOSHMS certificate, thus providing better protection for safety and health of workers in the workplace.
After the release of the international standard ISO 45001 and the national standard CNS 45001, the Ministry of Labor has amended the Occupational Safety and Health Management System to require high-risk business units to implement and promote CNS 45001. In addition, the TOSHMS certification system has been gradually improved and CNS 45001 has been adopted as the TOSHMS certification standard. In the future, through the cooperation between OSHA and TAF, there will be closer links in accreditation of TOSHMS certification bodies, auditing and information sharing.
OSHA states that occupational safety and health management system is an effective tool for enterprises, as developed countries encourage enterprises to strengthen occupational safety and health management in a systematic way. In order to make the management system effective, the top management of the company should continue to support and invest resources to improve the safety and health risk management ability of the company to achieve the win-win goal of ensuring a safe and healthy workforce and sustainable operation.
