25.11.2010

Double accreditation for AFI

UK based AFI-Uplift has announced that it has achieved accreditation to the ISO 14001 environmental management standard and OHSAS 18001 Health & Safety standard.

The company believes that it is the first UK powered access rental business in the UK to add both the ISO 14001 environmental management standard and the OHSAS 18001 occupational health and safety standard to its ISO 9001 standard.

AFI’s certification was carried out the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) The ISO and OHSAS assessors carried out inspections and interviews with AFI employees at a selection of depots within the company’s national network and also at its support services headquarters at Castle Donington in the East Midlands.

In preparation for the assessment AFI implemented a series of initiatives to meet the standards. These included:

• Replacing its fleet of service vans with more fuel efficient vehicles.
• Re-using machine parts wherever possible.
• Reviewing all products used by the service teams to ensure they are environmentally-friendly and are being used correctly.
• Introducing an employee Continual Professional Development programme for health, safety, environmental and quality issues.
• Introducing training for employees to ensure they understand the requirements of the new standards and why some working methods would need to change.

Austin Baker, AFI health, safety, environment and quality director, said: “We set ourselves a tremendous challenge to go for both standards at once and within only one year. It is a massive achievement for us to have gained both standards and, as far as we are aware, to have become the first powered access company to be certificated for both and the first to an accredited system.”

“Accreditation by UKAS demonstrates the competence, impartiality and performance capability of these evaluators. This factor is tremendously important to our customers because they will know that our accreditations are awarded at the very highest level and are therefore more valuable and of course measurable.”

“Standards such as ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 are increasingly being stipulated by major customers as a pre-requisite to doing business with them. Understandably, they want to ensure that they are working with suppliers who take the environment and health and safety very seriously,” he added.

Clare Rochford, AFI’s senior auditor, added: “It is important to realise that this achievement is the start of a programme of continuous improvement that will take place, guaranteeing our customers the very best services available.”