Manheim Auctions and Remarketing awarded OHSAS 18001

Manheim Auctions and Remarketing has successfully retained its leadership position within the vehicle remarketing sector for Health, Safety and Risk Management by being awarded OHSAS 18001 certification for the third consecutive year. OHSAS 18001 ensures that the organisation is managing risk, requires all employees to be part of this process and also demonstrates a high level of care for employees, vendors, customers and contractors alike.

Initial certification began back in 2005 when Manheim’s Occupational Health and Safety Consultants, TPA Limited, provided training and access to its web based OHSAS 18001 self assessment tool. Each of Manheim’s twenty remarketing locations created a gap analysis report from the internet site and began working to address the recommendations. By the summer of 2006 Manheim had conducted many internal audits across all locations and over 100 employees had attended training days. Following a successful sample audit conducted by TPA Limited the formal certification audit process was undertaken during November 2006 and resulted in the award of the OHSAS 18001 certification.

Part of the certification process is to be able to demonstrate continual improvement and subsequent audits have provided substantial advice for the future personal development for Manheim employees, helping customer processes run more smoothly and ensuring better managed contractor control processes. The accreditation has also helped the business in relation to its building maintenance costs and programmes along with supporting the process for Manheim’s continual site refurbishment programme. After three years all twenty locations have now been audited involving some 1300 employees who all played a direct or indirect part in this process.

Tom Meagher, the lead auditor from TPA Ltd said: “Manheim Auctions and Remarketing have again demonstrated a smart approach to risk management and are now reaping the rewards for all their efforts.”

Pete Lacey, Manheim’s Group Risk Manager added: “By being the first vehicle remarketing company to set this standard we have experienced a reduction in accidents and incidents across all our locations and have obtained reductions in our insurance premiums. We now see less of our management time spent on dealing with unexpected problems and more time dedicated to customers and strategic operational planning.”