Fitting Them (Standards) All Together

Many companies spend a lot of money getting various accreditations, for example in quality – H&S – environment. In our view these systems all do the same thing – help you manage the business better.

Although not yet fully recognised all these standards can be fitted together in an Integrated Management System (IMS) to offer a business real value and economy of effort. Here our H&S expert outlines the requirements and benefits of such a system.

An Integrated Management System

What is an Integrated Management System?

PAS 99 (Publicly Available Specification) is the world's first integrated management system requirements specification based on the six common requirements of ISO guide 72 (a standard for writing management system standards).

It has been developed by BSI in response to market demand to align your processes and procedures into one holistic structure that enables you to run your operations more effectively.

Who is it relevant to?
Integrated management is suitable for any organisation, regardless of size or sector, looking to integrate two or more of their management systems into one cohesive system with a holistic set of documentation, policies, procedures and processes.

Which standards can be used with PAS 99?

A typical integrated management system might include:

ISO 9001 Quality
ISO 14001 Environment
BS OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety
ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security
ISO 22000 Food Safety
ISO/IEC 20000 IT Service

This list is not finite and the range of standards incorporated into the integrated management system may vary from business to business.

What are the Benefits of an IMS

The potential benefits of an IMS enable a business to have:

• A more streamlined flow of information throughout the activities it performs.
• Improves recognition and understanding of responsibilities and interrelationships thus in turn improving staff morale and motivation
• An increase in operational efficiency
• An improvement in overall performance
• A reduction in cost, time and disruption from third party audits and certification programmes
• An integrated approach to managing business risk
• A reduction in duplication of processes
• An improvement in internal and external communications by having one set of business objectives

Typically, an IMS will include:

• A description of the scope of the management system including the selected management system standards (ISO, OSHAS etc)
• A Statement of the company’s policies and objectives – known as a Statement of Intent
• A System Manual describing the main elements of the management system and their interaction, including common policies, processes and procedures and references to related documents
• The documented Procedures and Records that are required by the chosen management standards
• Documents determined as necessary by the company to ensure the effective planning, operation and control of its processes

Common Requirements

Document Control is one of the Procedures which easily lend itself to an IMS, as the control procedure is standard across the range of management systems:

Documents required by IMS will be controlled:

(THE COMPANY) will establish, implement and maintain documented procedures to define the controls needed to

Approve documents for adequacy prior to issue
Review and update and re-approve documents as necessary
Ensure that changes and current revision status of documents are identified
Ensure that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at point of use
Ensure that documents remain legible and readily identifiable
Ensure that documents of external origin are identified and their distribution controlled
Prevent the unintended use of obsolete documents and to apply suitable identification to them if they are retained for any purpose.

Records will be established, documented and maintained to provide evidence of conformity to requirements and the effective operations of the management system.

(THE COMPANY) will establish, implement and maintain a documented procedure to define the controls needed for the identification, storage, protection, retrieval, retention and disposal of records.

Other standard clauses for which one procedure gives benefits include:

• Internal Audit & Management Review
• Communication
• Evaluation of Compliance
• Handling of Non-Conformities
• Improvements

To Summarise

Implementing an effective (it has to be) IMS that is bought into by all employees of the business has the potential to keep the Company one jump ahead and real value. In our view it will become a recognised standard by which all companies are judged.

If you would like help designing and implementing a streamlined system, with a reduction in paperwork, less duplication of effort AND cost-savings sounds appealing, then contact EMS for more details.

Written by our Quality, H&S expert.