Seven elements
- Organisation and personnel — who is responsible, with what competence, with what training.
- Identification and evaluation of major hazards — by a systematic method, with records.
- Operational control — safe operating instructions, maintenance, permits to work, contractor control.
- Management of change — assessing changes to the plant, the process or storage before they are made.
- Planning for emergencies — scenarios, plans, drills.
- Monitoring performance — measuring objectives and indicators, evaluating incidents and near misses.
- Audit and review — testing the system at intervals and reviewing it at the top.
The weakest link: management of change
Behind a large share of major accidents sits a change that was never assessed for safety: a different gasket, a line connected temporarily, an alarm bypassed “for now”. Management of change is therefore not a formality but a load-bearing column of the system.
Relationship with an existing management system
Where ISO 45001 or ISO 14001 is already running, this system does not replace them but can be integrated with them: document control, internal audit, corrective action and management review can run jointly. The condition for joint running is that the elements specific to major accident hazards stay visible inside the general system.
What an inspection looks for
For each of the seven elements the question is not “is it written down” but “is it working”: a change file, a drill report, a near miss closed out, an internal audit finding. An element with a procedure but no example counts as not established.