Safety Management Systems under Seveso II. Implementation and Assessment.

The "Seveso II" Directive requires certain establishments holding hazardous substances to implement a Safety Management System (SMS). The paper discusses the origin of this requirement, the guidance drawn up to help companies fulfil it, and the results of its preliminary testing. In implementing and inspecting SMS it is important to identify SMS weaknesses and the safety culture that effects SMS and to evaluate safety performance. The second part of this paper examines the industrial practice in evaluating SMS. Preventive actions to control risks and policy updating within the company through strategic plans are found to be sensitive to the number and type of SMS elements taken into account as indicators. The guidelines and evaluation methods could produce useful results only when safety aspects and system elements are identified and evaluated separately for each installation.

MITCHISON Neil;  PAPADAKIS Georgios; 

1998-09-17

JRC16697

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC16697,