3 Definitions T 38

Terms, definitions and books related to audits and occupational health and safety

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. Socrates

Some terms and definitions currently used in this module:

Acceptable risk: risk reduced to a tolerable level
Accident: undesired event causing death or health and environmental damages
Audit client: everyone requesting an audit
Audit conclusions: outcome of an audit
Audit criteria: everything against which audit evidence is compared
Audit findings: every deviation from audit criteria
Auditee: everyone who is audited
Auditor: everyone who is trained to carry out audits
Competence: personal skills, knowledge and experiences
Corrective action: action to eliminate the causes of nonconformity or any other undesirable event and to prevent their recurrence
Customer: anyone who receives a product
Environment: space in which any organization functions
Hazard: situation that could lead to an incident
Incident: undesired event that could lead to health damages
Interested party: person, group or company affected by the impacts from an organization
Nonconformity: non-fulfillment of a specified requirement
Occupational health and safety (OH&S): everything that can influence the wellbeing of the personnel in a company
OH&SMS: Occupational Health and Safety Management System
Organization: a structure that satisfies a need
Product (or service): every result of a process or activity
Risk: plikelihood of occurrence of a threat or an opportunity
Safety: aptitude to avoid an undesired event
Stakeholder: person, group or company that can affect or be affected by an organization
Supplier: an entity that provides a product

Examples of interested parties: investors, customers, suppliers, employees and social, public or political organizations

In the terminology of occupational health and safety management systems, do not confuse the following:

anomaly, defect, dysfunction, failure, nonconformity, reject and waste
- an anomaly is a deviation from what is expected
- defect is the non-fulfillment of a requirement related to an intended use
- dysfunction is a degraded functionwhich can lead to a failure
- failure is when a function has become unfit
- nonconformity is the non-fulfillment of a requirement in production
- reject is a nonconforming product which will be destroyed
- waste is when there are added costs but no value
accident and incident
- an accident is an unexpected serious event
- an incident is an event which can lead to an accident
audit and inspect
- to audit is to check and to improve the OH&SMS
- to inspect is to verify the conformity of a process or product
audit, auditee and auditor
- an audit is a process of evaluating and improving the OH&SMS
- an auditee is the one who is audited
- an auditor is the one who conducts the audit
audit program and plan
- an audit program is the annual planning of the audits
- an audit plan is the description of the audit activities
control and optimization
- control is meeting the objectives
- optimization is the search for the best possible results
customer, supplier and subcontractor
- a customer receives a product
- a supplier provides a product
- a subcontractor provides a service or a product on which a specific work is done
effectiveness and efficiency
- effectiveness is the level of achievement of planned results
- efficiency is the ratio between results and resources
follow-up and review
- follow-up is the verification of the obtained results of an action
- review is the analysis of the effectiveness in achieving objectives
hazard and risk:
- hazard is the state, the situation, the source which can lead to an accident
- risk is the measurement, the consequence of a hazard
indicator and objective
- an indicator is the information on the difference between the achieved result and the pre-set objective
- an objective is a sought after commitment
organization and enterprise, society, company
- organization is the term used in the standard ISO 9001 as the entity between the supplier and the customer
- enterprise, society and company are examples of organizations
organizational chart and process map
- the organizational chart is the graphic display of departments and their links
- the process map is the graphic display of processes and their interaction
procedure, process, product, activity and task
- a procedure is the description of how we should conform to the rules
- a process is how we satisfy the customer using people to achieve the objectives
- a product is the result of a process
- an activity is a set of tasks
- a task is a sequence of simple operations

Remark 1: each time you use the term "improvement opportunity" instead of nonconformity, malfunction or failure, the auditee will gain a little more confidence in you.

Remark 2: the use of ISO 19011, ISO 45001 and ISO 9000 definitions is recommended. The most important thing is to determine a common and unequivocal vocabulary for everyone in the company.

Remark 3: the customer can also be the user, the beneficiary, the initiator, the client, the prime contractor, the consumer.
Remark 4: ISO 19011 version 2018 uses the terms procedure ( ), record ( rec ) and documented information together. We also use the terms procedure and record together with the term documented information.