Industries around the world have been implementing management systems into their organizations. Initially ISO 9001 was implemented to address quality issues, followed by the need to address environmental concerns (ISO 14001) and health and safety (OHSAS 18001).

The term “Integrated Management System” (IMS) is now being adopted by various industries but what does an IMS really mean to an industry and is there a difference between “Integrating Management Systems” and an “Integrated Management System”?

Most industries tend to view an IMS as an integration of management systems and they consider that development of one management system manual that addresses the requirements of more than one management system (i.e., ISO 9001 and ISO 14001) as an IMS. However, industries that have fully implemented an integrated management system go beyond the concept of one manual and have seen changes in organizational behaviour. For these industries, the IMS has resulted in them dealing with all stakeholder needs and handling more complex quality, environment, health and safety and social accountability issues.

IMS can involve the integration of one or more management systems. The greater the number of management systems integrated together the more the benefits for an industry. For instance, if only ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 management systems are integrated this means that the issues dealt with by the IMS will be limited to environmental and health and safety and the focus will be on a more limited number of stakeholders. However, if ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and SA 8000 form the IMS then a full range of stakeholders will be considered and the issues dealt with will be expanded to include social accountability (i.e., forced labour, child labour, discrimination) and quality.

Benefits of an IMS
Today industries are integrating quality (ISO 9001), environment (ISO 14001), health and safety (OHSAS 18001) and social accountability (SA 8000) issues so that they are able to:

• Manage a greater number and type of risks and liabilities and ensure
  • Compliance with laws and regulations.
  • Risk management and due diligence.
• Greater emphasis on reduced cost (Bottom Line)
• Increase demand through increased sales (Top Line) by incorporating
  • Customer and investor demands.
  • Innovation / Differentiation.
    
• Identify and manage opportunities such as
  • Employee productivity.
  • Innovation and prosperity.

Industries that go beyond integrating management systems and implement an integrated management system help an industry achieve a more sustainable future by addressing a wider variety of issues (i.e., health & safety, environmental, quality, social accountability)

An integrated management system enables an organization:

• To ensure that nothing important is forgotten.
• To have confidence that everyone understands who is responsible for doing what, when, why, where and how.
• To continually improve everything they do that impacts on customers and stakeholders.
• To demonstrate the ability to consistently meet customer, stakeholder and regulatory requirements, and
• To ensure that money and other resources (i.e., human) are used effectively and efficiently.