Introduction/Overview

Integrated Management System (IMS) is integration of various management systems and processes that an organization presently follows or intends to follow. This concept of IMS stems from the ever evolving and constantly changing global market scenario where businesses are no more restricted to certain geographical setup hence there is widespread variation in demands related to regulatory bodies and societal needs related to quality, environment, occupational health and safety, etc. ISO has also evolved over the years catering to expanding market and thus the concept of IMS also emerged where one unified management system is created that streamlines with all management systems that an organization intends to implement. IMS ensures that consistency in the processes and systems that have been established are maintained ensuring efficiency and reduction in complexities but it also requires meticulous planning for executing all required steps of IMS. This article will provide a guide on this very subject.

Purpose/Importance

The main purpose of this article is to: 

• Provide a step-by-step detailed guide on the developing an integrated management system for the organization

• Help organization create an efficient management system that is optimized and has minimal redundancies

• Create a mechanism within the IMS to foster the culture of continual improvement 

Components of IMS

Key things to be ensure while addressing the challenges include:

1. Engaging Interested Parties: Ensuring that organisation must engage top management, relevant interested parties or representative of interested parties is important from the very beginning. This takes care of the need of commitment to ensure the success of IMS. Resistance to change mostly occurs when interested parties are not aligned from the beginning. 
   
   

2. Defined Scope: Finalise the scope of IMS, which are the management systems to be considered for the unified approach.
   
   

3. Resources: Even before roll out or plan of implementation of IMS is started, it important to understand resources eg. Manpower, machines, technology, etc are all taken into consideration while the budgeting for IMS implementation is being done. Any type of shortfall of resources will reflect in the quality of management system being implemented.
   
   

4. Process and Operations Integration, Documentation: Ensure to review existing processes and documentations to ensure no duplication of work is done and procedures that can be utilised is taken.
   
   
   

5. Competence Building: To effectively implement IMS, all team members must undergo relevant trainings. A matrix can be created with level of training required for each personnel involved in the IMS.
   
   

6. Establishing Communication Channel: The biggest barrier to any new process is lack of communication. Ensure to periodically communicate with interested parties on the implementation journey and updates. More effective if it’s a two-way communication thus a more effective engagement.
   
   

7. Review: During the course of activities at workplace be it related to QMS, EMS, etc there will be deviations, non-conformities, incidents that are going to take place. The process of establishing actions to correct it now and prevent such occurrence in the future as well is the key. Ultimately these occurrences are lagging indicators for the organisation, more in numbers would result in putting reputation at stake.
   
   

8. Continual Improvement: In the course of implementation, organisation is expected to improve processes through internal stakeholders feedback or devise a mechanism to obtain such feedback.

Steps for the Implementation/Guide

For IMS implementation, following are steps: 

S No	Description	Action	Remarks
1	Define scope of IMS	This means organisation has to decide on which management systems it is intending to integrate such as ISO 22001, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, etc Once the scope is frozen, further steps can take shape.	Take into account the size, type of organisation and interested parties expectations
2	Engage with Leadership and interested parties	Ensure to engage with top management from the beginning and involve in decision making, establish a communication channel to ensure correct resource allocation and support to fight back any resistance	Major roadblock to IMS would occur if there is lack of support and commitment from the leadership.
3	Conduct a gap analysis	This involves evaluation of the existing processes and comparison with the requirements of the standard to check for any improvements that needs to be done
4	Planning	A detailed plan just like a project execution plan needs to be chalked out with timelines, resources, responsibilities and clear action plan. It is easier if tasks are disintegrated into smaller tasks.
5	Processes Alignment	If an existing process or a management system is in place, ensure to do a thorough review of the processes. In case a new management system is being established, ensure to align the processes across all management systems under consideration. The goal is to ultimately ensure integration exists across all documents	Avoid duplications
6	Competence Building	Ensure to establish a competence mapping system withing the IMS, training matrix along with tracking mechanism for effective training outcomes.	Knowledge is power
7	Implement the IMS	Once the above steps are completed, roll out IMS for implementation across organisation
8	Review the progress	Periodic reviews must be conducted on the progress of the IMS implementation and with feedbacks, system must be revisited to ensure it is optimised.
9	Continual Improvement	Ensure to establish a management system that seeks feedback, conduct reviews, audits and constantly make efforts to improve the management system.

Best Practices/Benefits

IMS provides an organization array of benefits from tangible to non-tangible gains.

1. Unified Approach: When the goal and objectives of the organization are clear, it becomes a solid foundation on which IMS builds. This allows for bringing everyone, right from leadership to operations team to the same ground. 
   
   

2. Maximize Productivity: IMS is bound to maximize the productivity of not just the operations but the people, machines, equipment, etc. It has a 360-degree impact on the organization. ISO standard does not ask for separate procedures to be established if an organization has started the path of implementation. Instead, it is upto the organization to establish a process to integrate but ensure the requirements of applicable standards are complied. Processes are eventually optimized.
   
   

3. Eliminating Duplication: Single most important benefit of IMS is eliminating duplication, not just in the documents/records but also multiple reviews that management or the leadership had to conduct to review effectiveness of standards individually. One single management system that includes unified policy, goals and objectives, etc. save a lot of time, effort and money.
   
   

4. Consistency: IMS approach provides an organization to create more consistent singular management system. This results in less complexity of processes, easy to understand and more focused approach towards organizational goals in large. Consistency here means even in the tiniest factors such as a common format for training records, common processes of training needs identification, communications, resource planning etc. When consistent processes are maintained to that level is when gaps between standard requirements and actual on ground implementation shrink.
   
   

5. Cost-Effectiveness: Organization’s productivity also lies on the fact how effectively one manages resources. IMS allows to integrate processes, optimizing manpower utilization, maximize machine utilizations, integrated assessments and audits and at the same time optimize on resources too. IMS helps in eliminating redundant processes, saves time and reduces cost eventually. This also means one can have one single certification audit as per the periodicity rather than engaging resources multiple times during the year.
    

Conclusion

IMS (Integrating Management System) provides businesses an opportunity to streamline the processes, reduce costs, develop consistency in the approach and continually improve. The task is humungous but following a step-by-step process can help ease the process of establishing and implementing IMS. When leadership commitment combined with cross functional team support, leveraging technology and engagement from employees ultimately results in a making IMS successful. Overall, IMS has been a great force in inculcating a culture of continual improvement, contribute to add value to interested parties and help manage the overall business risk and opportunities.