790 Environmental Management Systems (EMS)

Operational Controls

Operational controls ensure that operations and activities do not exceed specified conditions or performance standards, or violate applicable regulations such as discharge limitations.

The need for operational controls is based on the significant aspects and legal requirements identified earlier. Operational controls are used to support the EMS and can be:

• Physical controls, (for example, berms, walls, and roofs),
• Engineering controls (for example, alarms, level indicators, and gauges), or
• Administrative controls (for example, procedures and inspections).

For aspects that need to be controlled, review whether existing physical controls, engineering controls, and administrative controls are sufficient. If they are not, develop an operational control. Here are a couple of examples:

1. You may have operational controls for production lines regarding chemical use, production methods, and temperature control to support both high quality production and EMS objectives and targets.
2. You may have an Operational Control Procedure that describes how a wastewater treatment plant will be operated to ensure compliance with Clean Water Act permit requirements regarding discharges to surface water from our facility.

These operational controls help ensure that specified conditions and performance standards are met.

One of the goals should be to keep operational control procedures simple, focusing on the "who, what, where, when, how, and why" of getting the job done to meet both facility production and EMS requirements.

Examples of activities that may require operational controls include:

• chemical purchasing
• material handling
• maintenance
• plating line operations
• wastewater treatment system operation
• waste accumulation and disposal
• storage of parts before off-site shipment

Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.