With more and more organizations “sticking to the knitting” and the core business competencies that contribute to their strategic business objectives, contracting of various services is becoming an increasingly   popular. But there are important considerations for contracting, especially from a safety and quality perspective.

Supplier safety and quality management has emerged as one of the leading business practices.  Quality suppliers, who perform their wrok scopes with hight performance levels of safety, are deemed to be a necessary part of your business because they provide good and services that you use to serve your customers. The business practices of suppliers have a direct impact on you, your organization and your customers. If you have a supplier that is not able to deliver your products on time, or to the level of quality you require, or with less than acceptable safety performance, then that directly affects you and your business. Evaluating a supplier is a necessary part of a quality and safety management system. You may decide to audit a new supplier because you are considering using them for your business needs, or you may decide to audit a current supplier because of an incident that occurred in the past. Or you may simply need confirmation that the policies, systems and practices of your supplier are still sound.

We can leverage of extensive experience with supplier audits to provide you with professional supplier HSEQ management and audit services. We’ll ensure the critical safety and quality expectations you have of your suppliers are met. We can assist you with:

• Scheduling the visit of your critical suppliers
• Planning the opening meeting
• Reviewing documentation
• Evaluating performance
• Ending the visit
• Reporting results
• Ensuring action plans and actions are effectively implemented

Quality Plus Inc. simplifies the whole process of supplier assurance and supplier auditing. Whether you're gathering supplier self audit questionnaires or simply keeping your supplier auditing records accurate and constantly up to date Quality Plus Inc. helps makes it easy.

As a result you will save on the cost of managing supplier auditing compared to using alternative systems, the quality and consistency of supplier auditing information will be improved and you customers will be impressed with the supplier auditing systems you have in place.

CONTRACTOR HSEQ MANAGEMENT . . DUE DILIGENCE AND GOOD PRACTICE

In today’s increasingly competitive environment it’s a common practice for many organizations to hire contractors to perform a wide variety of services. Contracted services can range from office cleaning to software supply, right up to major construction and offshore oil and gas supply and services. Health and HSEQ law across Canada gives employers and work site owners duties and responsibilities for their own directly hired employees as well as for the employees of contractors.

For Newfoundland and Labrador, an occupational health and safety program required under section 36.1 of the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act references Section 12.(1)(i) of the regulations requiring:

“a system to ensure that persons contracted by the employer or for the employer’s benefit comply with the program developed under this section and the Act and regulations”.

In order to protect its own employees and its liability an organization that engages the use of contractor would be prudent to develop and establish a comprehensive Contractor HSEQ Management System. A written contractor HSEQ program should start by recognizing the legal concepts applicable to contracting, and the concepts that have become entrenched in health and HSEQ decision making by courts as they relate to the concept of due diligence.

A contractor HSEQ program should identify and distinguish those scenarios where a hands-on due diligence strategy is required when contracting, and where a hands-off, more direct monitoring strategy may be utilized when contracting. This means that the greater the occupational risk, the greater the standard of care which should be exercised when dealing with your contractor HSEQ management issues.

A Contractor HSEQ Management Program must be designed to establish a process that will manage the risks related to the use of contractors. The contractor HSEQ management process provides consistent direction for managing contractor HSEQ, and helps protect employees and contractor personnel from workplace injury and occupational illness, and from losses associated with incidents related to the contracted work.

Typically, a well-designed contractor HSEQ management system includes the following:

1. Contract Preparation and Pre-Qualification

The contractor selection process involves setting your contractor HSEQ requirements prior to evaluating, selecting, and awarding a contract to the contractor which you feel is able to meet your technical and commercial expectations, while ensuring that the contractor also meets all your HSEQ requirements. Establishing a contract, and corresponding contract language that clearly outlines your HSEQ requirements is a crucial first step.

Those in your organization that are authorized to hire contractors need to work closely with the HSEQ professionals to ensure contractors are prepared and competent to enter into a written contract. The contract will establish some of the basics like workers’ compensation and various insurance requirements and will also include minimum liability insurance and compliance requirements related to the health, safety or environmental legislation as well as any quality- related standards specific to the contracted scope of work.

It would also be prudent to include contract language which references any specific or unique hazards associated with the contracted scope of work and the expectations of the prevention and control measures that will be required to be demonstrated by the contractor.

2. Contractor Selection Process

Contractors must be prequalified using a "Contractor HSEQ Pre-Qualification Questionnaire". Once the contractor has been approved they should be added to your Approved Suppliers List.

Only contractors on an organizations approved contractor list are hired to perform any contracted work. The approved suppliers list should be maintained either by your HSEQ group or your contracting department. In either event, both of these groups should have ready access to the list to determine who is an approved supplier.

3. Pre-Contract Award Audit

Most contractors are evaluated and assessed based on a process whereby answers to required questions, and the documentation associated with the question evaluation process is assessed; however, it is important to remember that this ‘paper-based’ review process is a documentation review only.

Depending on the criticality of the contract, or the cost or risks involved, it may be prudent to consider a pre-contract award audit of the contractor in question to validate that the contractor’s HSEQ management system ‘on paper’ is an accurate reflection of their day-to-day practices. This due diligence step can make a big difference in addressing any potential problems before they become serious and harder to manage after a contract has been awarded.

4. Post-Contract Award Audit

In some instances, you may not have the luxury of time to conduct a pre-contract audit; however, there may be an opportunity before work begins to conduct an HSEQ audit of the contractor’s management systems and practices. Again, depending on the time and resources you have available to you, careful selection and scheduling of contractor HSEQ audits can be a challenge; however, remember that risk, cost and work scope will be determining factors in deciding whether there is good value in this due diligence exercise.

Pre or post contract award audits are good and prudent practices, and are considered a good due diligence practice.

5. Pre-Job Briefing and HSEQ Orientation

Once you’ve selected your contractor and are ready to start the work scope, it is prudent for you to have the selected contractor attend a pre-job work scope briefing as a critical step in working with the contractor to communicate your HSEQ requirements and to clarify any site-specific HSEQ issues that may develop as the work scope progresses. The focus and time of the pre-job briefing can be variable but should emphasize the specifics of the work scope and highlight the identified risks associated with the work scope. It is important that this pre-job briefing be documented by the individual or group with the responsibility for hiring and managing the activities of the contractor.

Copies of the pre-job briefing should also be shared with the contractor. It’s critical that there be no misunderstanding of the HSEQ performance expectations associated with the work scope and contract.

Prior to the start of any site work contractors should complete a contractor HSEQ orientation and sign-off on an orientation checklist. Only contractors having completed the HSEQ orientation and sign-off on should be permitted to perform work related to the work scope, especially if it involves any site work.

6. Contractor Management and Monitoring

It is important to define your process for how you will regularly monitor the contractor’s HSEQ performance. Whether through site visits and observations, meetings or briefings, HSEQ audits or other management and monitoring initiatives which you deem relevant, it is important that you execute your strategy in a timely and diligence manner.

It would also be a good idea to have your contractors submit a regular progress report to you based on HSEQ reporting criteria that you deem important. Many of the reporting requirements have a blend of leading and lagging HSEQ indicators.

7. Ongoing HSEQ Communication

It’s important that ongoing HSEQ briefings or meetings be scheduled with your contractor to continuously discuss HSEQ performance expectations and results. In addition to being an opportunity to address issues before they enlarge into problems, any non-conformance or non-compliance issues can be discussed.

Performance monitoring should be an ongoing agenda item for these briefings and meetings.

8. Post-Contract HSEQ Evaluation

Regardless of the duration of the scope of the work it is important that the HSEQ performance of all your contractors needs to be honestly and thoroughly reviewed and evaluated. Poor performance may result in the removal of the contractor from the approved suppliers list. It is just as important to recognize those contractors who have provided exceptional service in order to determine the overall level of HSEQ performance for the possibility of awarding the contractor future work.

Remember. . . Contractor HSEQ Management should be an integral part of your HSEQ management system and strategies