Operations that are streamlined are essential to keeping overhead costs low in this fast-paced world of business.

Eliminating redundancies and consolidating systems become the norm nowadays. Implementing an integrated management system provides you with a framework for doing just this. Integrating reduces duplication and improves efficiency. Integrating your various management systems will provide you with greater effectiveness and efficiency than running separate management systems in parallel. If you are currently running separate management systems, you could make potential savings by running them as a single entity.

Integration of management systems does not mean that only ISO related standards are to be integrated. Other legacy systems and process and industry standards are also integratabtle with your current management system. Here are some examples:

1. Academic Institutions. Most academic institutions have followed the path of setting up management systems for their schools, colleges or universities. Setting up an ISO system made their systems more effective and efficient but they have other regulatory, statutory and industry standards they have to be compliant with. The international Quality Assurance Agencies for Higher Education (INQAAHE) control the various accreditation bodies such as FAAP (Federation of Accrediting Agencies in the Philippines of which the PACUCOA, PAASCU and AACUP are under), the Singapore Quality Class for Private Education Organizations (SQC-PEO) and the Council for Private education (CPE), the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) which established the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) was established by ENQA, the European Students Union (ESI), the European University Association (EUA) and the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), ENIC – NARIC comprising all countries of Europe (including the Holy See and thus all Pontifical Universities worldwide). All these bodies provide accreditation of institutions using standards to ensure the quality of their educational instruction.

2. Health Care Providers. Hospitals, Clinics, and other diagnostic and healthcare facilities also have their share of standards that they practice industry-wide. Doctors follow the Clinical Practice Guidelines of the Associations they are registered to such as the College of Surgeons, various Medical Association of each nation, the College of Allergy Asthma & Immunology, the Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the Academy of Dermatology, Academy of Family Physicians, Neurology, Ophthalmology, Dentistry, Cardiology and so many more. Not to mention the different support academies such as the Nursing Guilds and more. These also have their sets of accreditation standards required across the industry not only locally but around the world.

3. Architecture, Design and Construction Companies. There are a myriad of instates and organizations that have formulated specific standards for their sector of the construction community.

4. Manufacturing Companies. These have organizations to standardize the design, manufacture and marketing of various products from cars, aircraft, electronic components, furniture, etc. I the Philippines, there is an organization called SEIPI (Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation, Inc.) which regulates the foreign and domestic semiconductor forms in the Philippines. The furniture manufacturing industry has the Furniture Industry Board Foundation and the ASEAN Furniture Industries Council. The auto industry has CAMPI (Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers in the Philippines) and the TMA (Truck Manufacturer’s Association). All these organizations regulate the various industries and set regulations and standards across the different companies.

The list goes on and on but despite these various specifics per industry, ISO has been seen to be a catalyst so that these standards can be easily integrated into the mainstream of each process within an organization.

So exactly what is an IMS? An integrated management system (IMS) is a single system designed to manage the multiple aspects of an organization’s operations in line with multiple standards, such as those for quality, environmental, health and safety, information security, etc. as well as industry specific standards as mentioned in the previous paragraph..

Every business has a way of doing things. It is formally called a “system”. Most businesses already have these systems whether formal or informal in order to operate even before their decision to be ISO certified. What they dont realize is without having a overarching set of standards to guide them through their various activities and issues, there can be a significant degree of duplication in their processes, activities and tasks as well as documents and records that create unnecessary extra work for their staff. In short, the organization’s processes are sub-optimized. If one looks hard enough, you will find that there are common points throughout the organization, and all people work towards the common goal of making your organization more effective and efficient.

In practice, an integrated management system involves merging existing “legacy” systems and implementing specific best practices organization-wide.

There is a saying that goes “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. This is also true for an IMS. By successfully integrating your different management systems, you can have a number of significantly tangible benefits such as avoiding duplication, a more effective use of executive time, more efficient resource usage, more effective implementation and management of the individual as well as the overall systems, and of course a more cost-effective certification process.

Many of today’s businesses see the value of certification under ISO 9001 because it is the business management standard. However, many other businesses also see value in being certified to there standards such as ISO 14001 (the environmental management standard), ISO 45001 (the health and safety standard) as well as other management system standards that can help them comply with regulations, or market their products better. At the end of the day, setting up ISO (and other industry standards) is done primarily to help you run a better organization. If your management systems cause duplication in your day to day work then obviously the system isn’t delivering the value that they should be.

The newly introduced Annex SL defines the high level structure for all ISO management systems standards. ISO introduced this to facilitate organizations in integrating their management systems. It provides organizations with the tools they need to integrate the current protocols, ease standardization and ultimately transform the different management systems into an integrated one.

This structure concept was introduced in the 2015 versions of ISO 9001 and 14001. It was then adopted for use for the rest of the currently running management system standards. The standards are now more compatible and more easily integrated. Annex SL makes the standards more compatible and enables a more effective integration of management systems in all areas.