What is an Integrated Management System (IMS)?
An integrated management system is a management system which integrates all components of a business into one coherent system so as to enable the achievement of its purpose and mission.

What Can Be Integrated?
Many businesses begin with integrating say Quality (ISO 9001) and Environmental (ISO 14001), then move onto Occupational Health & Safety (45001) & Information Security (27001) etc, but there are no rules and it's entirely up to the business which combination of standards and specifications they wish to integrate.

If a business wishes to they can then move onto any activities which have an effect on business results to be part of the management system. Therefore, all currently formalised systems focusing on quality, health and safety, environment, information security, business continuity, personnel, finance, site security etc. can be integrated. All the processes and the documents that describe them should be integrated.

Benefits of Integration

reduces duplication and therefore costs
increases profitability
balances conflicting objectives
eliminates conflicting responsibilities and relationships
diffuses the power system
turns the focus onto business goals
formalises informal systems
harmonises and optimise practices
creates consistency
improves communication
facilitates training and development

How Should Systems Be Integrated?

There are several approaches which can be taken, depending on an organisation's current position.

If an organisation has a quality management system, it can build upon that by adding the necessary processes to cater for health, safety, environmental and other requirements of management system standards. All systems should share the following processes:

Context of the organisation
Leadership
Planning
Support
Operation
Performance evaluation
Improvement.

Alternatively a specification may be used to provide the framework for integration, such as:

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).

This excellent specification may be used 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 business, 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
ISO 50001 Energy
BS OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety
ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security
ISO 22000 Food Safety
ISO/IEC 20000 IT Service
ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management

This list is not finite and the range of standards incorporated into the integrated management system may vary depending on client requirements.

In addition to PAS 99, there is ANNEX SL.

In 2012, there was an event that had a significant impact on organisations, trainers, consultants, certification bodies, accreditation bodies, auditors and Management System Standards (MSS) writers.

It was the publication of Annex SL (previously ISO Guide 83) which defines the framework for a generic management system. Since then all ISO MSS had to adhere to this framework and all current MSS will migrate to the framework at their next revision.

In future all ISO MSS should be consistent and compatible - they will all have the same look and feel. This could be the beginning of the end of the conflicts, duplication, confusion and misunderstanding arising from subtly different requirements across the various MSS.

Founder of ISO Systems UK and Lead Consultant Billy Naisbett has specialised in IMS's since 2004, should you require any further information. You can find his details on our Contact Page.

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