The term Integrated Management System is established for integrating system related to Quality, Environment and Occupational Health and Safety Management System. The IMS audit has been used for several different types of Integrated Management System investigations.
An Integrated Management System (IMS), the management systems were dealing with as many requirements of ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 as possible in the same way. For Example, if any two systems have policy requirements such as management approval, revision, and communication, then should we deal with it in the same way as well as Why don’t we control documents and records in the same form?
There are many courses are available which consists organization’s context, the number of existing systems, and the systems’ maturity. In terms of an ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management System), ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System) and ISO 45001:2018 (Occupational Health and Safety Management System) standards requirements, There are available Punyam Academy’s one, of course, Online IMS Lead Auditor Training that can help you to map and define Documented Information, Risk Management, Roles and Responsibilities, and Audit Process suitable for all of the management systems.
Following are the actions to be considered:
IMS Awareness & training: Use a single procedure to prescribe the method and frequency of IMS training and awareness activities, as well as the same IMS training materials related to common requirements of standards. This makes it easier to make the organization’s employees aware of the ISO 9001; ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 standards’ requirements, and how these requirements can help improve business results.
Objectives and IMS policy definition: Identify the organization’s purposes for the system and develop a single IMS policy that covers all the organization’s management systems.
Context definition. To determine all the factors of internal/external factors.
Actions to treat risks: To develop plans to deal with potential impacts that is negative/positive and it may be exposed.
Documentation Design and implementation: Use unified documented information for the processes of the integrated management system, like document and records control and internal audit.
Internal audit: Make use of the same IMS internal auditor to verify if the integrated processes are being realized as planned and achieving the expected results.
Management review: Turn multiple reviews into a single one to aid top management’s understanding of the IMS achievements and results.
Corrective actions: A single IMS procedure can be used to take and follow up on the measures taken if processes and/or results are not as expected.
For organizations certified with IMS systems, or those considering IMS certification, when top management asks about the certificates and the IMS certification processes, using the IMS approach the certification process will be cheaper, cause of the integrated certification.
Benefits of an integrated management system
Following are the main benefits of implementing an integrated management system are:
When going for an integrated certification audit decreasing the cost.
Cost optimization by the unification of internal audits, document control, IMS training, and administration.
Maintenance optimization through using the same approach to manage multiple standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001.
Increasing agility and effectiveness of related decisions involving multiple standards’ requirements for better understanding by top management of systems issues.
Required to integrate new management systems with fewer efforts.