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as ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 promote systems thinking, and hence organizational learning; as these are developed and implemented, and through their ongoing maintenance and continual improvement, their users begin to have an increased ability to see interconnections between their immediate focus (OH&S) and other organizational functions, supply chains, and beyond.

An iceberg model has commonly been used in the systems dynamics and systems thinking disciplines; this is depicted in Figure 1. This model frames systems' cause–effect relationships within several levels that are progressively more difficult to see and/or define, with events being above the waterline, and then with a progression of levels below the waterline that are less obvious. Daniel Kim refers to these levels as “levels of perspective” (7).

      These levels – events, patterns, structure, mental models, and vision – can be described as follows:

       Events. This level is above the water line and points to what is observed day in and day out and are often trailing indicators. An example here is an accident.

       Patterns. Under “events” is a level that points to what is observed with an eye toward understanding what is causing the accidents. Patterns and trends begin to emerge when accident data are collected and analyzed, say through root‐cause analysis.

       Systems/Structures. Under “patterns” are the programs and systems that affect the patterns; causal connections are made. ISO MS provide a way to strengthen this level; when missing, accident prevention programs are put in place. Many believe that this level holds the key to lasting, high‐leverage change (6).

       Mental Models. Under “systems/structures” are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action; they determine not only how we make sense of the world, but how we take action (6).

       Vision. Under “mental models” are pictures of the future that are a guiding force that determines the mental models, and goals to pursue.

FIGURE 1 Systems thinking iceberg.

      Source: From (5). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Public Domain.

      Gaining an understanding about the iceberg and how the levels interact is an important step in improving decision‐making skills, as each level offers a distinctive mode of action, with each successive level (moving toward the iceberg's bottom) providing increased leverage. Being able to distinguish in real time which level (perspective) is in play, increases the ability to select the most effective intervention. This awareness is valuable when developing and implementing an OHSMS.

3 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

      Seeds for the systems approaches addressed in this chapter can be traced back to some of the earliest advances in OH&S practice and management. Since the early work of pioneers in the quality management field, and ISO's entry into the management system arena with ISO 9001:1987 (8), there have been numerous iterations and developments that have led to the prominent OHSMS approaches.

      OH&S MS have significant roots in the quality MS developed in United States in the early twentieth century by Shewhart who first conceived of the concept of a modern control chart. More comprehensive MS became available when his work was expanded and refined by Joseph Juran, W. Edwards Deming, and Armand Feigenbum who developed many of the tools of statistical process control (SPC). However, the wide acceptance of these systems did not occur until they were brought to Japan in the 1940s where an explosion of integration and improvement by Kaoru Ishikawa, Genichi Taguchi, and Shigeo Shingo led to much of what we would recognize as elements of an effective management system today. These pioneers created such tools as such as the Plan‐Do‐Check‐Act (PDCA) cycle or Deming Wheel, Pareto analysis, fishbone diagrams, stratification, histograms, scatter charts, process control charts, tolerance design (Taguchi methodology), and the six sigma DMAIC methodology (9).

      All of these systems, tools, and processes focus on reducing variation and defects and encourages the robustness of organizational management processes, including the identification of an acceptable level of variation. Among the earliest adoption of such tools and techniques to OH&S resulted from Frank Bird's analysis of 1.75 million accidents in the steel industry in 1976, which led to his development of the International Safety Rating System (ISRS) (10).

      MS standards became more generally accepted in organizations with the development and global deployment of the ISO 9000 family of standards for quality MS beginning in 1987 (8). Around this same time, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States published its Voluntary Safety, and Health Program Management Guidelines that served as a model for many organizations as well as the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) approaches to follow (11, 12).

      ISO published an environmental management system (EMS) in 1996, it was designated as ISO 14001:1996 (13). This was one standard within a family of environmental standards that were published largely in response to issues raised at the Rio Summit on the Environment held in 1992. The 14000 series built on the global influence of ISO 9001:1987, and was implemented by organizations in a wide variety in industries albeit at a slower pace than 9001.

The application of the ISO process to environmental management suggested that an ISO‐based OH&S standard might quickly follow; however, this was not the case. It took ISO nearly 20 years to develop and publish an OHSMS (ISO 45001:2018) (14); the first attempt to develop an ISO OHSMS was in 1996, after failed attempts, its development process began anew in 2013, and it was finally published in 2018. In the interim, numerous national and private OHSMS standards were developed and used. Several countries including the United States, Australia, and Canada published national OHSMS standards (15–17). The most widely used was OHSAS 18001:2007 (18). While this standard was not the result of a formal consensus development process, it was developed by accreditation bodies and had at its core several consensus documents including BS 8800 (19) and ISO 14001. In the absence of an ISO OHSMS until 2018, OHSAS 18001 provided organizations with a robust MS framework which could be used in third‐party certification schemes.

      In the same timeframe that ISO 14001:1996 was first made available, several important OH&S MS were also published (e.g. BS 8800 and Australia's SafetyMap). By the late 1990s, numerous countries, along with professional organizations (e.g. the Japan Industrial Safety and Health Association, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), and the Chemical Manufacturers Association) had started to develop OHSMS standards and guidelines.

      In the mid‐1990s in the United States, OSHA began to consider rulemaking for a comprehensive OH&S program standard (20). Activities on this effort continued through the early 2000s. Over time, the priority of these efforts diminished and was officially off OSHA's agenda by 2003, and until it was revived in 2010.

      Researchers at the University of Michigan (UM) developed an ISO 9001‐based OHSMS that was published by the AIHA in 1995 (21). The UM/AIHA OHSMS received significant attention from various stakeholders and standards‐making organizations, and a companion generic OHSMS assessment instrument was developed and published in 1999 (22). As part of the development of the assessment instrument, a generic OHSMS model was created to support the instrument. This model has since been used widely throughout the world by private companies and by standards‐making bodies to assist their system development efforts (15, 23).

      It was during ISO's failed OHSMS efforts in 1996, that standards‐making experts put forth the idea and recommendation that the ILO could be a more suitable organization to develop an international OHSMS standard. With this, in 1997, the ILO began to conduct background research on OH&S MS as a precursor to forming the tripartite group of experts that developed ILO‐OSH 2001 (23). The International Occupational Hygiene Association (IOHA) assisted the ILO with this research endeavor.