QSE standards

The purchasing function is very involved in quality management, environmental management and occupational health and safety management.

The purchasing function and the QSE function are intimately linked. Like other corporate functions, the purchasing function is very concerned by quality management, environmental management and occupational health and safety management. Indeed, buying poor-quality components will quickly have an impact on the quality of the finished product, and therefore on the company’s value creation. Similarly, buying raw materials with a high environmental impact will quickly show up in your carbon footprint.

Another example, in the field of OHS, is that of the office chair ordered for all employees: when you choose a model of better ergonomic quality, you know that it will cost the company more, but will also enable it to reduce other costs: fewer musculoskeletal disorders, therefore less absenteeism, better productivity, greater satisfaction. A buyer who is able to monetize these risks well can easily convince his internal specifiers, his contracting authority or his management.

In this spirit, the major management system standards can be extremely useful.

• ISO 9001 (2015): quality management system
• ISO 14001 (2015): environmental management system
• ISO 45001 (2018): occupational health and safety management system