Six Sigma Fundamentals: A Complete Introduction to the System, Methods, and Tools

Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14001)

ISO 14001 specifies the requirements of the environmental management system (EMS). EMS, like six sigma and PSM, needs to have senior management commitment and to be structured and integrated within the management system to be effective. The requirements are applicable to all kinds of organizations, be it a manufacturing industry or a service industry. The EMS model consist of five categories:

• Environmental policy.

• Planning.

• Implementation and operation.

• Checking and corrective action.

• Management review.

Project team. The first step in implementing ISO 14001 together with six sigma is to establish a project team. The project team, which can be named the EMS-six sigma implementation committee or steering committee, steers the sequence of adopting both ISO 14001 and six sigma. An employee from the environmental department is the best choice to lead this process. This employee should be trained to a level of master black belt (MBB) in the six sigma methodology. Another two employees should be assigned to the committee, one from the engineering division and one from the budget department.

Environmental policy. Environmental policy has an important role in the implementation of ISO 14001. The definition of the policy shall ensure the following:

• The policy is appropriate to the nature, and scales the environmental impact, of the organization's activities.

• The policy shall contain a commitment to continual improvement and pollution prevention.

• The policy shall contain a commitment to comply with relevant environmental legislation and regulations, and to other requirements to which the organization has subscribed.

• The policy shall define a framework for the setting and the reviewing of environmental objectives and targets.

• The policy shall be documented, implemented, maintained and communicated to all employees.

• The policy shall be available to the public.

Planning. The organization is required to establish and to maintain a procedure to identify activities that have environmental aspects. These aspects are to be considered in defining environmental objectives. The framework of these objectives should be sensitive to changes in legislation, and to perform activities to meet the requirement derived from legislation changes. Objectives and targets are expected to be defined in the planning stage and to be documented. The establishment of a program to achieve the objective and its targets is part of the planning stage and it should include the following:

• Designation of responsibility for achieving objectives and targets at each relevant function and level of the organization.

• A time frame and means to achieve these objectives and targets.

In this category, the process is studied in order to determine the changes that will lead to the improvements.

Structure and responsibilities. Definition of roles, responsibilities, and authorities are among the first steps in the implementing of ISO 14001. A representative from top management shall be assigned to that mission, irrespective of his other responsibilities. The steering committee analyzes the framework and obtains the requirements for sources allocation. (If the implementation of ISO 14001 is in order to became certified, a registrar firm should be contacted for the registration.)

Training, awareness and competence. All employees whose work will significantly impact the environment must be appropriately trained. The steering committee prepares a training program for the employees that will address the awareness of the following:

• The importance of conformance with the environmental policy and the requirements of EMS.

• The significant impact of the employees' activities on the environment, and the benefits of personal performance improvement.

• The roles and responsibilities of the different functions in achieving conformance with the environmental policy, and the requirements from EMS, including emergency preparation and response.

• The potential consequences of departing from specified operating procedures.

Communication. The steering committee shall establish a procedure for internal communication between the different levels of functions, and for receiving, documenting and responding to external interested parties.

EMS documentation and document control

A documentation of the interaction among the core elements of an EMS is required. Establishing a document control procedure ensures that:

• Documents can be located.

• Documentation will be reviewed periodically and revised if necessary and approved by the authorized personnel.

• The current documents are available, should they be needed.

• Obsolete documents will be removed and retained in a way that they can be identified.

Operational control. Activities that are associated with significant impact on the environments have to be redesigned to ensure the following conditions:

• Scenarios, which deviate from normal operation conditions, will be covered.

• Operational criteria will be stipulated.

• The environmental aspects of organization goods and services will be identified.

Emergency preparedness. Scenarios of accident and emergency situations should be treated in the following sequence:

• Identify potential scenarios.

• Apply activities to prevent and mitigate the scenarios.

• Establish responding programs to treat real time events.

• Establish procedures for recovery after the occurrence of accidents or an emergency situation.

• Periodically drill and test responding programs and recovery procedure.

• Review and revise all the aspects, procedures and emergency preparation programs after the occurrence of an accident.

Checking and corrective actions

Monitoring and measurement. Monitoring and measuring activities that have significant impact on the environment are key elements in maintaining environmental policy. Documented procedures for measurements and monitoring are required by the ISO. The information revealed from this monitoring and measuring shall be recorded in order to track conformance performance. Monitoring equipment should be calibrated and a record of this process should be retained.

Corrective and preventive actions. The international standard (ISO14000) requires the establishment of procedures that define the responsibility and authority of handling, investigating and taking corrective actions to mitigate and prevent nonconformance.

EMS audit. The purpose of auditing is to verify the process conforms to the planning, and proper implementing of EMS. The results of the auditing process should be presented to the management.

Management review. Management review is required to verify EMS's continual improvement, adequacy and effectiveness, and to address changes in policy needed to maintain continual improvement.

Environmental performance evaluation (ISO 14031)

ISO 14031, environmental performance evaluation (EPE), identifies the key elements of evaluation for any organization that does not have EMS. Typical items are:

• Identifying the organization's environmental aspects.

• Determining which aspects it will treat as significant.

• Setting criteria for its environmental performance.

• Assessing its environmental performance against these criteria (later, when EMS is established and it's in its operation stage).

  ISO describes two categories of indicators:

  1. Environmental performance indicators (EPIs).

  2. Environmental condition indicators (ECIs).

  EPE is a performance indicator. The EPIs are divided into two groups:

  • Management performance indicators (MPIs) reflect management's efforts to influence environmental performance.

  • Operational performance indicators (OPIs) reflect the organization's operation environmental performance.

ECIs reflect the environmental condition and help in understanding the potential impact that the organization's activities have on the environment.

The information generated by an EPE can assist in the following:

• Determining any necessary actions to achieve the organization's environmental performance criteria.

• Identifying significant environmental aspects.

• Recognizing opportunities for better management of the organizational environmental aspects (e.g., prevention of pollution).

• Identifying trends in its environmental performance.

• Increasing the organization's efficiency and effectiveness.

• Recognizing strategic opportunities.

EPE process model. EPE is an internal process that uses indicators for the evaluation of the organizational environmental performance. EPE methodology consists of four stages that follow the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model where:

• Plan involves planning environmental performance evaluation and selecting indicators for environmental performance evaluation.

• Do includes using data and information (i.e., collecting data analyzing and converting data, assessing information and results and reporting and communicating findings.

• Check and Act consists of reviewing and improving environmental performance evaluation.

EPE is a very strong measurement tool that can lead to the successful implementation of ISO 14001 and can be a tool to be used by the six sigma methodology.

Comment

The six sigma methodology is inherent in OSHA PSM elements, although the measurement of the bottom line performance on the sigma metric scale is missing. Identifying the PSM sigma metric is not a simple task, but it is applicable. It is possible to measure the sigma metric of subsequences in the PSM with different parameters. Then, the subsequence can be improved to a six sigma level separately, and by that it will contribute to the improvement of the main program.

The six sigma methodology is applicable to environmental management systems. The EMS leads to a state of continual improvement and has the basic features that are essential to any system that is applicable to the implementation of a quality management system. A model of the combined six sigma-EMS system should consist of the different stages of both standards. Table 8.2 is a summary of the combined stages with recommendations to the ownerships of each stage.