Integration of management systems: focus on safety in the nuclear industry

TLDR

Integrated management systems are increasingly needed to address the growing number of management standards, with organizations already combining quality and environmental systems under ISO 9000 and 14000. The study investigates whether occupational health and safety, dependability, social accountability, and complaints‑handling systems can be incorporated into an IMS, and how such integration would affect organizational structures and implementation. Using a nuclear industry case, the authors illustrate how a safety management system can be integrated into an IMS framework, with additional function‑specific requirements added thereafter.

Abstract

The need to create integrated management systems (IMS) in order to handle the proliferation of management system standards is undeniable. There is also evidence in literature and practice that organizations are slowly starting to tackle the IMS issue, mainly by putting an integrated quality and environmental management system in place. Due to the existence of internationally accepted standards covering these two fields, namely ISO 9000 and 14000 series, such a scope of integration comes as no surprise. However, can and should other systems, for example, the ones for occupational health and safety, dependability, social accountability or complaints handling, be included? What would such an integration mean for the existing organizational structures and how could be it be accomplished? When we attempt to address IMS issues, do we really talk about the integration of standards, systems, both or neither? These and other important questions regarding IMS are addressed here. By means of an example from the nuclear industry, this paper focuses in particular on the integration of a safety management system within an IMS framework. Since safety is of such a paramount importance in nuclear plants, it makes sense to integrate safety requirements within a quality management system, as a possible first step in the integration efforts. Subsequently, other function‐specific requirements may be included to form a “real” IMS.