ISO 37301: keeping on top of compliance

Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s may be that long stage of business operations that seems to drag on forever. With ISO 37301, that process will hopefully become both quicker and easier without sacrificing quality compliance. Any business needs to make sure that it is being thorough with all its operations, not the least safety and employee wellbeing; that all starts with compliance from the top. Abiding by national, industry and sometimes even international regulations and standards is the right way forward for any organisation regardless of sector or field. ISO 37301 — the newest compliance standard from the International Organization for Standards (ISO) — aims to provide careful and effective guidelines for compliance management systems like its title, ‘Compliance Management Systems — Requirements with Guidance for Use’, suggests.

Compliance is one of those broad subjects that sometimes seems difficult to handle due to its multifaceted and sweeping nature. There can be regulations on how best to conduct pre-start routines on certain machinery but also standards for environmental impact of a facility. Commonly today, it seems to be the case that if there is a metric, there is likely a standard or way of measuring it up against industry performance. So how do you go about measuring and keeping track of all these standards and their compliance? Modern organisations across several industries are turning to paperless solutions to manage their compliance through compliance management systems, marrying these with industry standards such as ISO 37301 for the full coverage.

Designed to cover all types of business of various sizes and operating natures, the ISO 37301 standard marks another step in the compliance journey for ISO. Organisations in the private and public sectors can be guided on fostering a culture of integrity and good corporate ethics. Often management teams struggle to develop, implement, maintain and also improve their compliance management systems, which in today’s digital era is crucial for performance. Not only should compliance be about avoiding fines and limited to one department, but “it’s everyone’s affair” as Howard Shaw, Chair of the technical committee to develop the ISO standard, notes. In order to work collaboratively and encourage structural development from top to bottom, compliance and improvement must be central to an organisation’s culture.

Luckily for those wishing to modernise their compliance management systems, even those using the previous ISO 19600:2014 version of the standard, ISO 37301 is here to help. Paired with digital inspection solutions, the standard can give a comprehensive package that sits along any other business inspection to transform performance and results. Compliance when done correctly means that things become standardised, simple and smart; lean efficiency that eliminates waste. The reduction of waste is commonly something that many organisations wish to achieve regardless of their field.

A key component in this compliance mastery is the digital platform upon which ISO 37301 can sit and work alongside. Paperless inspection and compliance solutions have long provided businesses with an opportunity to inspect their safety in a facility, the asset lifecycle or conduct compliance checks. Through using dynamic checklists, corrective actions and simpler audit trails, paperless inspection solutions are a natural partner to standards such as ISO 37301. By taking advantage of the features and functions on a smartphone and tablet, compliance inspection and audit trail management can be greatly streamlined with high-grade simple evidence. Compliance doesn’t have to be complicated ever again.

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