QEHSGlossary
QEHS terminology, defined.
30 core terms every safety, quality, and environmental program owner encounters — short definitions for skimming, long definitions with sources. Published as schema.org/DefinedTerm for AI-assistant lookup.
Metrics
- Days Away, Restricted, TransferredDART
Rate of cases involving days away, restricted duty, or job transfer.
DART = ((column H + column I cases) × 200,000) / hours worked. Captures OSHA columns H (days away) and I (job transfer or restriction). More severity-weighted than TRIR, less noisy than LTIR.
- Lagging indicator
A reactive metric measuring past performance.
TRIR, LTIR, DART, fatalities, citation counts — all lagging. Useful for benchmarking, weak for steering. Programs that report only lagging indicators to leadership are flying blind.
Related: leading-indicator, trir
- Leading indicator
A proactive metric predicting future performance.
Examples: near-miss rate, inspection closure time, training-currency rate, observation-to-action conversion. Leading indicators let a program steer, not just measure — they change before the lagging indicators they predict.
Related: lagging-indicator, trir
- Lost Time Incident RateLTIR
Cases with days away from work, per 100 FTE per year.
LTIR = (lost-time cases × 200,000) / hours worked. A subset of TRIR that only counts OSHA column H (days away). Useful for comparing across jurisdictions that emphasise lost-time over broader recordability.
- Total Recordable Incident RateTRIR
Recordable injuries per 100 full-time workers per year.
TRIR = (recordable cases × 200,000) / hours worked. OSHA uses 200,000 as the normalising constant (100 FTE × 2,000 hrs). It is the single most-cited safety metric, but it is a lagging indicator — it measures what already happened.
Related: ltir, dart, leading-indicator
Incidents
- Incident
An unplanned event causing or with potential to cause injury, illness, or damage.
Incident is the umbrella term covering near-misses, first-aid cases, recordable injuries, lost-time injuries, fatalities, and environmental releases. OSHA uses "injury or illness" for work-related recordable incidents.
- Near miss
An incident with potential for harm that did not result in injury or damage.
A near-miss is an unplanned event that could have caused injury, illness, or damage but did not. Capturing near-misses is a proxy for organisational safety culture — low report counts signal under-reporting, not a safe site.
Related: incident, leading-indicator
Risk
- Bowtie analysis
A risk-visualisation method connecting threats, a top event, and consequences.
A bowtie diagram has a central "top event" with preventive barriers on the left (threats → event) and mitigative barriers on the right (event → consequences). Used heavily in process safety and major-hazard facilities.
- Hazard
Any source of potential damage, harm, or adverse health effects.
Hazard is the source (e.g. moving machinery). Risk is the combination of likelihood and consequence when exposed to the hazard. Programs control risk by removing or isolating the hazard, not by warning about it.
Related: risk, jha, control-hierarchy
- Hazard and Operability StudyHAZOP
A structured review of a process using guide-words to find deviations.
A team-based PHA technique that walks the process design, applying guide-words (No, More, Less, Reverse, Other Than, etc.) to each parameter (flow, temperature, pressure, level) to identify deviations, causes, consequences, and safeguards.
- Risk
The combination of likelihood and consequence of harm from a hazard.
ISO 31000 defines risk as the effect of uncertainty on objectives. In QEHS practice, risk is calculated as Likelihood × Consequence, often on a 5×5 matrix with named thresholds (Low / Medium / High / Critical).
Related: hazard, risk-register, bowtie
- Risk register
A living list of identified risks with owners, controls, and review dates.
Core artefact of any risk-based management system. Typical columns: risk description, category, likelihood, consequence, risk score, controls, residual score, owner, review date. Periodic review — usually quarterly — keeps it live.
Operations
- Job Hazard AnalysisJHA / JSA
A step-by-step breakdown of a task with hazards and controls per step.
Also called Job Safety Analysis (JSA) or Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) in some jurisdictions. Structure: task steps → hazards per step → controls per step → residual risk. Most useful when reviewed on-site by the crew performing the work.
- Lockout / TagoutLOTO
Isolating hazardous energy during servicing and maintenance.
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.147 requires identification of energy sources (electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, thermal, mechanical, chemical, gravity), application of locks/tags, verification of zero-energy state ("try-out"), and documented return-to-service.
Related: ptw, energy-isolation
- Management of ChangeMOC
A structured process for evaluating changes before they are implemented.
A PSM element (1910.119(l)) and an ISO expectation. Captures the technical basis of the change, affected procedures, training needs, and authorising approvals before execution. Skipping MOC is one of the most common root causes in major-hazard incidents.
- Permit to workPTW
A formal authorisation to perform high-risk work with defined controls.
PTW systems cover hot work, confined space, working at height, energy isolation, excavation, and critical lifts. The permit captures the controls agreed between requestor, authorising person, and operations, and is retained as audit evidence.
Related: hot-work, confined-space, loto, jha
- Personal Protective EquipmentPPE
Equipment worn to minimise exposure to hazards.
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.132 requires a hazard assessment certifying the PPE selected. PPE is the last rung of the hierarchy of controls — elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and PPE.
Related: control-hierarchy, sds
Standards
- ISO 14001
Environmental Management System standard.
Most-widely adopted environmental standard globally. Life-cycle perspective on aspects and impacts, compliance obligations register, and emergency preparedness for environmental releases.
- ISO 45001
International standard for Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems.
Published 2018. Replaced OHSAS 18001. Uses the Annex SL high-level structure shared with ISO 9001 and 14001. Ten clauses: Context, Leadership, Planning, Support, Operation, Performance evaluation, Improvement.
- ISO 9001
Quality Management System standard.
The most-widely certified management-system standard. Customer focus, process approach, risk-based thinking, and the PDCA cycle as operating philosophy.
- Process Safety ManagementPSM
OSHA 29 CFR 1910.119 — 14 elements preventing major process incidents.
Applies to processes containing threshold quantities of highly hazardous chemicals. Requires PHA, written procedures, training, contractors program, PSSR, mechanical integrity, hot-work permit, MoC, incident investigation, emergency planning, and compliance audits every three years.
Quality
- Corrective and Preventive ActionCAPA
Actions taken to fix a nonconformity and prevent its recurrence.
CAPA separates corrective action (eliminate the cause of the detected nonconformity) from preventive action (eliminate the cause of a potential nonconformity). ISO 9001:2015 uses CAPA as part of clauses 10.2 (nonconformity) and 10.3 (improvement).
- Fishbone / Ishikawa
Cause-and-effect diagram grouping causes by category.
Also called the Ishikawa diagram. Cause categories commonly include Man, Method, Machine, Material, Measurement, Environment (the 6 Ms / 6 Es). Better suited to multi-cause problems than Five Whys.
- Five Whys
Iterative asking of "why" to trace a cause chain.
Developed at Toyota. Repeatedly ask "why did this happen?" — typically five iterations are enough to cross from symptom to cause. Works best for single-fault-path problems, less well for systemic issues where multiple causes interact.
- Nonconformity ReportNCR
A record of a product, process, or system that does not meet a requirement.
Used in ISO 9001 quality programs and regulated industries. Each NCR is linked to a CAPA for containment, correction, and preventive action.
- Root Cause AnalysisRCA
A structured method to find the underlying cause of a problem.
Common methods: Five Whys (iterative questioning), Fishbone / Ishikawa (cause categories), Fault Tree Analysis, and Apollo RCA. The output is a cause chain, not a list of symptoms. The usefulness of an RCA is measured by whether the CAPA it produces prevents recurrence.
Health
- Globally Harmonized SystemGHS
UN-harmonised system for classifying and labelling chemicals.
GHS standardises hazard classification (physical, health, environmental), label elements (pictogram, signal word, hazard statement, precautionary statement), and SDS format. Adopted by OSHA HazCom 2012 in the US.
- Safety Data SheetSDS
16-section document describing a chemical hazard and its controls.
OSHA HazCom 2012 adopted the GHS 16-section format: Identification, Hazard identification, Composition, First-aid, Fire-fighting, Accidental release, Handling and storage, Exposure controls / PPE, Physical and chemical properties, Stability and reactivity, Toxicological information, Ecological information, Disposal, Transport, Regulatory, Other.
Environment
- Environmental, Social, GovernanceESG
A framework for reporting non-financial sustainability performance.
ESG reporting is distinct from environmental management under ISO 14001, though the two overlap. Common standards: GRI, SASB, TCFD, CSRD (EU), ISSB. QEHS data (emissions, water, waste, injuries, diversity) is frequently the source for ESG disclosures.
Related: iso-14001