What is the Annex L Platform?
Annex L (originally called Annex SL, then renamed in 2019 as Annex L) is a management system format that helps streamline creation of new standards, and make implementing multiple standards within one organization easier.
While many standards have common elements, they were described and organized differently, making it difficult for organizations to implement multiple standards.
“Annex L” further addresses these issues by creating a “template” upon which ISO Management System Standards (“MSS”) are to be built in the future.
How Will Annex L Help You?
An example of Annex L’s potential may be seen in examples of how documents are more easily managed. For example, Integrated Standards store specializes in providing the basic documents that those seeking multiple standards certification can tailor to their needs. Here is the previous structure of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001:
| ISO 14001:2004 | ISO 9001:2008 | |
| General Requirements | 4.1 | 4.1 |
| Policy | 4.2 | 5.3 |
| Objectives, Targets and Programs | 4.3.3 | 5.4.1, 5.4.2 |
| Resources, Roles, Responsibility, (Accountability) and Authority | 4.4.1 | 5.5.1, 5.5.2, 6.1 |
| Competence, Training and Awareness | 4.4.2 | 6.2.1, 6.2.2 |
| Communication | 4.4.3 | 5.5.3 |
| Documentation | 4.4.4 | 4.2.1, 4.2.2 |
| Control of Documents | 4.4.5 | 4.2.3 |
| Monitoring and Measurement | 4.5.1 | 7.6, 8.2.3, 8.2.4 |
| Nonconformity, Corrective Action and Preventive Action | 4.5.3 | 8.5.2, 8.5.3 |
| Control of Records | 4.5.4 | 4.2.4 |
| Internal Audit | 4.5.5 | 8.2.2 |
| Management Review | 4.6 | 5.6 |
The current structure of ISO 14001:2015, ISO 9001:2015, ISO 45001:2018, ISO 50001:2018 (and others) is now based on the Annex L framework and therefore shares common terms and definitions. On a practical level, Annex L improved and streamlined this combination process.
- 0: Introduction
- 1: Scope
- 2: Normative references
- 3: Terms and definitions
- 4: Context of the organization
- 5: Leadership
- 6: Planning
- 7: Support
- 8: Operation
- 9: Performance evaluation
- 10: Improvement
If you are interested in integrating multiple standards, here are comparison pages to show you how easy Annex L makes implementing multiple standards into your organization.
- Compare ISO 14001 + ISO 45001
- Compare ISO 9001 + ISO 14001 + ISO 45001
- Compare ISO 9001 to ISO 14001
- Compare ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, and ISO 50001
- Compare ISO 9001+ ISO 45001
Building Standards Specificity On Annex L’s Mandated Structure
Annex L solves the problem of potential redundancy in basic structure for companies wishing to deploy multiple standards. It requires that a time and effort-saving common structure be used for recurring quality management standard elements. It also allows more specifics to be added for a given area of expertise, i.e., environmental, health, safety.
What Standards Use Annex L?
There are several standards that now use Annex L. Here are a few:
- ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System
- ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System
- ISO/IEC 27001, Information technology: Security techniques, Information security management systems
- ISO 45001:2018 Occupational Health & Safety Management System
- ISO 50001:2018, Energy Management System
And there are some sectors that implemented Annex L including:
- International Automotive Task Force – IATF 16949
- International Aerospace Quality Group (IAQG) – AS9100/10/20
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