Volume 9 · Issue 3 · March 2004

Contents

Page 13…

Otter Tail and ISO 9001 “Join Forces” for SOX Compliance

Sanford Liebesman and Paul C. Palmes address the question: Can you really apply ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 “management tools” to mitigate risk from SOX? In this third part of a series, they write that the Otter Tail Corp. is validating an approach to SOX compliance that relies in part on its ISO 9001-conforming QMS, a validation that makes clear that effective auditing is one of several tools critical to both QMS conformity and SOX compliance. Liebesman and Palmes demonstrate why management system managers and auditors must communicate with Top Management so as to gain management’s understanding of and support for the use of the QMS or EMS to help assure SOX compliance.