Introduction

Subcon Engineering is a contract and a subcontracting manufacturing show of the UK focused on manufacturing and provides an opportunity for all the outsourced services related to engineering to interact. The company that is selected from Subcon engineering for implementing an integrated management system is Production Engineering Solutions (PES) Company in the industry of oil and industry.  PES is the organisation that is focused on delivering solutions related to the advanced technological developments which are considered as significant for the production managers and engineers all over the world. Production engineering solutions assist in delivering the latest news, topical features, product development, event previews, and application stories from the manufacturing industry of UK every month (Production Engieering Solutions, 2015).

The solutions that are offered by PES cover all the recent advancements in technologies, which are important for the managers and engineers in the production field. The product and service line if this organisation consists of CAD/CAM, machine tools, tooling and work holding products, sheet metal equipment, cutting oils, coolants or subcontracting services and inspection or test equipment. Apart from this, the editorial content facility of the organisation provides a variety of information regarding the products and services linked with manufacturing.   They make use of some of the shows to promote their products and service among the suppliers in the UK. The most prominent among which is the Subcon show in which PES took participation for the equipment related to oil and gas industry  (Production Engieering Solutions, 2015).

The equipment’s that was considered by PES for subcontracting solutions on Subcon show are 5-axis machining, machining, grinding and surface finishing, tooling and work holding, turning, and profiling and advanced sheet metal technology.  A new product that is 5-aix machining centre has been added to the product or services portfolio of PES of which seven models are present.  Similarly, other products would assist the manufacturer of oil and gas industry in their processes. Moreover, they can also make use of integrated management systems for the purpose of making the procedures and methods of the operations of the organisation effective  (Production Engieering Solutions, 2015).

In this paper, the senior management of Production engineering solution is suggested to implement integrated management systems along with certification in order to assist them in improving products and services. The three main standards that are ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS18001 is evaluated and compared on the basis of key principles. Moreover, the gap analysis is also described in the report for the purpose of integrating additional standards into the ISO 9001 quality management system. This is also illustrating the requirements that are not required for the particular management system standard.  In addition to this, the achievement of compliance along with an evaluation of legal compliance for these three standards, which include ISO 9001 quality management system, ISO 14001 environmental management system and OHSAS 18004 safety management system, is also provided in the paper.

Analysis for Implementation of IMS

Key Principles

ISO 9001

There are eight key principles of ISO 9001, which makes it different from other standards of the management system. The principles are elaborated below:

Focus on Customers

In order to meet the standard for quality management, it is important for organisations such as PES to understand and analyse the needs and wants of consumers. Moreover, according to this principle, management is responsible for determining the manner in which customers perceive their performance positively. Therefore, based on this, the management of Production Engineering Solutions has to focus on customers to recognise their opinion about the products and services delivered by them in order to make their management system effective (Garengo & Biazzo, 2013).

 Provide Leadership

Clear direction is provided to the organisation and its employees with the help of a skilful leader. They make the vision, mission, and purpose of business clear so that targets are achieved without any troubles.  The leaders develop a culture and environment to enable the employees to work in the manner through which customers can be satisfied. Therefore, this principle would prove to be helpful for PES in the implementation of integrated management system as it focuses on customer satisfaction by leading the employees (Zhu, et al., 2013).

Involving People at all Levels

Another principle of ISO 9001 that needs to be considered by the organisations such as PES implementing integrated management system is involving people across all the levels of the organisation as it assists in achieving quality. Everyone has their own specific capability and role towards the success, which makes it possible for the business, deliver products or services along with quality (Heras‐Saizarbitoria & Boiral, 2013).

Adopting a Process Approach

This principle of ISO 9001 revolves around the concept that things are attained more effectively when they are managed as processes instead of separate or individual tasks. Processes are arranged in a sequential manner, which makes it convenient for the management to achieve the purpose without any trouble. It is analysed that PES must adopt this principle of ISO 9001 at the time of implementing a management system due to the fact that it helps in making the operation successful and effective (Fernandez-Muniz, et al., 2012).

Systems Approach for Management

ISO 9001 clearly states the fact that for the purpose of quality management system it is significant that systems approach to management is implemented because it involves understanding the management system and the way it must work. Similarly, the PES must ensure that they have complete knowledge of their management knowledge for effective implementation of the integrated management system (Britvic, et al., 2013).

Improvement

According to this principle, the management system adopted by PES must aim at improving the performance of the business to avoid any sort of hurdles that might arise in between the success of the organisation (de Vries, et al., 2012).

Decision-Making through Facts

The organisations must make use of facts and relevant information at the time of making decisions. For this purpose, it becomes essential for the management of PES to at first gather data and analyses it so that effective decisions are made (Zhu, et al., 2013).

Relationships with Suppliers

As per this ISO 9001 principle, the relationships with those suppliers must be maintained that are of mutual benefit for the organisation. This is due to the fact that both supplier and organisation both are dependent on each other making it essential for each to consider the benefit of other. Therefore, PES makes sure that they have a strong relationship with suppliers whose benefits are dependent on them (Simon, et al., 2012).

ISO 14004

Being under Responsibility and Policy

The first and the foremost principle, which is highlighted by ISO 14001 standards for implementation of management systems by organisations is to consider the policy associated with environmental conditions. Therefore, it is essential for Production Engineering Solutions to determine the policy of environment and provide commitment towards the environment management system (Tari, et al., 2012).

Plan

This is the second principle of ISO 14001 standard according to which the organisation determines the sizes of action, services and products along with a selection of important things.  Moreover, aims and objectives must be identified in order to realise the commitment for the organisation. Therefore, to implement integrated management systems, PES must prepare plans to reach the targeted aims and objectives (Zhu, et al., 2013).

Applying and Operation

Support mechanism and skills must be created by organisations to attain objectives and aims and to apply the actions with efficiency. This makes it convenient for organisations such as PES to implement the management systems within business operations without hurdles (Heras‐Saizarbitoria & Boiral, 2013).

Control and Corrective Action

The environment performance must be evaluated by organisation along with the successful degree of this performance. Moreover, they must also evaluate the monitoring in order to elaborate the corrective action.   This principle would make it convenient for PES to consider the environmental aspects along with an analysis of the performance of its management systems (Bernardo, et al., 2012).

Review and Developing

Environment management systems must be reviewed by organisations such as Production Engineering Solutions in order to create general environment performance. Moreover, the process of review would also guide them to develop the processes through which problems can overcome (Searcy, et al., 2012).

OHSAS 18001

Leadership Involvement

It is essential for the top of management of the organisation to get engage actively in the management system. Hence, at the time of implementing a management system, the top officials must involve in the management system to make the performance of system successful (Krut & Gleckman, 2013).

Commitment to Compliance

This principle focuses on the societal interests, which is highlighted in the laws and regulations. These must be addressed in order to make the process of integrated management system effective and successful towards the achievement of goals and objectives (Fernandez-Muniz, et al., 2012).

Risk Management

The needs related to risk management drives the implementation of health and safety system within organisations so that performance can be enhanced and improved. This process assists in recognising the risks and hazard along with the control with the help of the injuries or ill health can be avoided. Therefore, at the time of implementing management systems, the PES must consider this principle of the OHSAS 18001 standard on health and safety management system (Ivanova, et al., 2014).

Worker Participation

The participation of workers in the management system processes is essential, as they are known as the primary stakeholders of an occupational health and safety management system. This makes the achievement of targets more convenient and accessible for the business (Lo, et al., 2014).

Performance Improvement and Monitoring

According to this principle, processes must be in place in order to attain continual improvement, a management system mantra.  However, with the help of proper monitoring, the performance of organisations could improve and enhance (Fernandez-Muniz, et al., 2012).

Gap Analysis

Integrating ISO 9001 with ISO 14001

ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 are two different standards that focus on providing quality and environmental management systems. Both ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 are considered as authorisations that are distributed to organisations for the purpose of either meeting or exceeding the benchmarks of conducting business set by ISO. Based on the criteria set for the two standards, some of the key differences between them can be analysed. As a certification for quality management, ISO 9001 is responsible to meet the standards set for some specific areas, which include management responsibility, quality management systems, and the manner in which the quality performance is determined, evaluated, as well as improved to meet the goals and objectives set by organisations (Qi, et al., 2012). While on the other hand, ISO 14001 is the standard based on environmental management that helps businesses in dealing with the development of their in-house environmental management systems. The basis of this standard is rooted in the model of continuous improvement due to which it distinguishes itself from the criteria set for the purpose of achieving ISO 9001 authorisation.  The processes involved in attaining a certificate of ISO 14001 consists of planning objectives, executing processes, determining and monitoring processes, and improving the performance or outcomes with the help of the monitoring process in the previous phase (Tari, et al., 2012).

In addition to this, it is analysed that another fundamental difference is present between the two systems that are going to be integrated by Production Engineering Solutions. Based on this, in the quality management system, the essential requirements of the system are defined by customers. However, the needs of other stakeholders might also be considered, but the customers are regarded as the most important individuals, which have the potential to affect the quality of products and services directly (Tari, et al., 2012).  Hence, it is evaluated from this concept that the goals of an effective quality system are clear in order to meet or exceed the requirements of the customer.  While on the other hand, the position for environmental systems is diverse. According to ISO 14001 standard, although customers are interested in the environmental impacts of companies, there are many other stakeholders to be considered as well. These include local communities, regulatory bodies and environmental activist groups have an interest in the environmental performance of the business. However, these stakeholders are not focused on ISO 9001, as it does not relate to the environmental aspects of business (Krut & Gleckman, 2013).

Moreover, external audit is required according to both the standards, but at the time of integrating ISO 14001 with ISO 9001, the gap exists in terms of internal audit, which is present in ISO 9001 quality management system. This is due to the fact that ISO 14001 is based on evaluating environmental impacts and systems for responding to emergencies which give rise to the need for external auditing. This means that for integrating ISO 14001 with ISO 9001 it is important for the selected organisation that is PES to make sure that proper external audit is conducted to make the processes and business operations successful and effective (de Vries, et al., 2012). This is one of the most prominent gaps that needs to be considered at the time of the integrating the two management systems. Hence, this means that additional requirements that are present in ISO 14001 are on external audit, focusing on stakeholders other than customers and approaches for assessment of environmental influences as well as systems for answering to emergencies (Ivanova, et al., 2014).

Integrating ISO 9001 with OHSAS 18001

OHSAS 18001 is quite similar to ISO 14001, but it involves some additional requirements, which are related to the health and safety environment essential for organisations to be considered. At the time of integrating OHSAS 18001 with ISO 9001, some of the additional requirements are there, which needs to be evaluated by PES at the time of implementing it.   The most significant difference between the two standards is that OHSAS 18001 addresses aspects of hazard identification, risk assessment, and determining controls.  Both ISO 9001 and 14001 does not address this point and is, therefore, considered as an additional requirement of this additional standard (Qi, et al., 2013; Searcy, et al., 2012). This added aspect would help the organisation that are already ISO 9001 certified in incorporating health and safety concern in their management system.  Moreover, apart from this the gap also exists in terms of legal and other requirements, as ISO 9001 does not consider the legal aspects of management systems essential for the effective working of business operations. Integrating ISO 9001 with OHS 18001 would ultimately diminish this gap, making the activities more effective and competent. Furthermore, other requirements that are incorporated in this standard are the concept of incident investigation as well as participation and consultation.  These are not incorporated in either ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 making it essential for the organisation to integrate OHSAS 18001 with it in order to assess the health and safety aspects in their integrated management system to make them successful (Fernandez-Muniz, et al., 2012).  

Compliance to Standards

In order to achieve compliance with these standards, it is essential for the organisation to evaluate all the requirements properly so that effective management system can be implemented. Compliance with standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and OHSAS 18001 could be attained with the help of following the requirements or standards set by the authorised body. For instance, for compliance with ISO 9001, the requirements are divided into different categories, which include requirements for the system, management, product, and services, resources and analysis as well as improvement. These requirements include proper documentation of the manner in which the quality management must work. Apart from this, it is also essential for the organisation to have a quality manual with accurate information.  The main aspect that must be focused for the purpose of complying with ISO 9001 is writing and making a proper quality policy to make the working of the businesses effective (Heras-Saizarbitoria, et al., 2013; Searcy, et al., 2012).

While on the other hand, 17 main elements are there that must be considered by the organisation in order to achieve compliance with ISO 14001. These consist of environmental aspects and impacts, environmental policy, objectives and targets, environmental compliance, resources, responsibilities and roles for environmental management, procedures related to training, competence  and awareness, documentation, communication, operational control procedures, document control procedures, emergency preparedness and response, evaluation of compliance method, corrective and preventative actions, management review, and internal EMS audit. The most important among these are environmental policy and environmental compliance requirements as they assist a lot in achieving compliance with ISO 14001 (de Vries, et al., 2012; Heras-Saizarbitoria, et al., 2013).

In addition to this, the compliance to OHSAS 18001 could be achieved with the help of fulfilling some of the essential requirements highlighted by the authorised body. These include a policy of occupational health and safety, which focuses on the identification of hazards, risk assessment, and determination of control so that risks and hazards can be avoided. Moreover, it also focuses on the legal and other requirements that are important to be followed in order to make the operations of business effective. However, this standard also makes it compulsory for organisations to conduct internal conduct in order to achieve compliance. This audit must be conducted at regular intervals to confirm that system complies with scheduled activities (Psomas, et al., 2011; Britvic, et al., 2013).

Therefore, for achieving compliance, the processes, and procedures that must be incorporated in the management system of Production Engineering Solutions are proper environmental programs, operation as well as control methods required for successful implementation of environmental management system, planning, and determination of objectives, targets. Moreover, these two additional standards also make it compulsory for the management to include the processes associated with the development of environmental management programs, along with proper training, competence and awareness (Lo, et al., 2014; Simon, et al., 2012). Moreover, the organisation must also incorporate a management review process to make their system more effective and high performance oriented.  However, in order to achieve this, they must make an appropriate plan so that any sort of mismanagement or problem can be avoided. A simple project plan that can be used by PES to achieve compliance culminating in the external audit is as follows:

1. Evaluation of strategies that are essential to integrate ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 with ISO 9001
2. Development of policies which incorporates environmental and risk management aspects
3. Proper assessment of the procedures to ensure that policies and requirements essential for the additional standards are followed
4. Monitoring those strategies that are used to integrate these standards into effective management system
5.  Analysing alternative and adopting corrective actions to avoid any sort of issues or problems that arise in the implementation of integrated management systems by considering these three standards together

Production Engineering Solutions can make use of the above plan in order to achieve compliance with three standards that is ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and OHSAS 18001 to integrate them in the management systems. However, all these focus on three different aspects that are quality, environment and occupational health and safety, but they are essential to make the performance of management systems as well as business proficient (Heras‐Saizarbitoria & Boiral, 2013; de Vries, et al., 2012).

Legal Compliance

ISO 9001

ISO 9001 discusses little legal compliance; however, it focuses on statutory and legal requirements related to the product. The main focus of these standards is customers and it aims at evaluating the satisfaction of consumers with the products and service of the organisation. Clause 7.2.2 of this standards highlight the importance of legal requirements in related to the products.  This clause determines the requirements that are important and related to the product with the help of which customers could be satisfied with delivering them the quality products or services. The clause clearly states that statutory and regulatory requirements related to the product must be determined by the organisation. Hence, it could be said that for the purpose of achieving legal compliance, the organisation has to consider the laws and regulations that are focused on the safety and environment as it could affect the consumers negatively. This means that PES could achieve compliance with appropriate legislation with the help of determining the needs and expectations of its customers so that they can be satisfied by their products and services. This is due to the fact that ISO 9001 quality management system emphasise on the customers making it essential for the management system to assist the performance in its performance (Qi, et al., 2012; Heras-Saizarbitoria, et al., 2013).

ISO 14001

 

According to ISO 14001, it is essential for the organisation to make a commitment to its environmental policy in order to comply with the legal requirements, which are related to the aspects of environmental concern. Some of the clauses that are given importance in the context of legal compliance are the following elements of Environmental Management System:

• Commitment to public environmental policy towards legal compliance
• Recognition and access to the pertinent legal requirements as well as other requirements that are in relation to the aspects of environment
• Application of the legal requirement to the environmental aspects of organisation
• Setting objectives, planning and programs
• Management and monitoring of legal obligations
• Assessment of the legal compliance
• Adopting corrective and preventive action at the time of requirement
• Proper internal audit
• Management review to analyse the processes and procedures (Lo, et al., 2014; Ivanova, et al., 2014)

Moreover, Production Engineering Solutions could achieve compliance by following the aspects highlighted by the standard in terms of environment. This means that it is important for the organisation to ensure that they are following the requirements so that legal compliance becomes easy and convenient to be achieved by the management. Obtaining legal compliance would ensure that they have the potential to achieve the rules and regulations of the standard related to the environmental aspects and they could improve their performance in the long run.  This compliance to legal requirements becomes the basis of achieving conformity for certification (Heras-Saizarbitoria, 2011).  

In addition to this, the organisation integrating quality management system with environmental management system must recognise all the environmental legal obligations along with understanding with the pertinent environmental regulations and laws. They also must possess some mechanism in order to make sure that new legal requirements are recognised in a timely mode. Furthermore, the policy developed and adopted by the organisation must possess a commitment to comprehend and conform to all applicable environmental regulations and rules. Apart from this, compliance with recognised legal requirements must be assessed because of self-defined periods (Bernardo, et al., 2012).

OHSAS 18001

In order to achieve compliance with legal requirements, it is essential for the top management of PES to list down its commitment towards the compliance with legislation and regulations in its occupational health and safety policy. This commitment to compliance is achieved with the help of recognising applicable legislature and rules.  Clause 4.3.2 under OHSAS 18001 highlights the requirements that are needed by an organisation for achieving compliance with legal requirements (Fernandez-Muniz, et al., 2012). Under this clause, an organisation must be able to develop, implement, and maintain an appropriate method that is needed in order to analyse and access the legal along with some other occupational health and safety requirements, which can be applied to it. Therefore, this clause makes it compulsory for the organisations such as PES at first recognise all the laws as well as other requirements needed for compliance especially in relation to health and safety. For this purpose, an individual must be selected who has the potential to recognise legal compliance requirements (Qi, et al., 2012). Some of the health and safety legal compliance requirements are as follows:

• Permits and licenses
• National, municipal and provincial legislation
• Directives and decrees
• Treaties
• Protocol
• Customary or indigenous law
• Codes of practice
• Agreements with customers
• Company requirements
• Non-regulatory guidelines (Zhu, et al., 2013)

Some of the important requirements that need to be followed by Production Engineering Solutions have mentioned above that assist them to achieve legal compliance in terms of implementation of the integrated management system. This is significant because it not only assists in making the business performance successful but also saves the management from any sort of legal complexity. Hence, the first and foremost things that are required for achieving legal compliance are the development and evaluation of the policy related to health and safety associated with the product, environment, customers and the organisation as a whole (Bernardo, et al., 2012; Garengo & Biazzo, 2013).

Conclusion

It is concluded on the basis of the above discussion that for the purpose of implementing an effective management system within the organisation, particularly PES the two standards that are ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 must be integrated with ISO 9001. This is done due to the fact that all these three standards are focusing on different aspects which are important for a successful business. For instance, ISO focuses on quality management, while ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 emphasises on an environmental system and occupational health and safety system. Integration of these three standards in one management system is considered as essential as the matter of fact that it makes the operations and performance of the business efficiently. Moreover, it is also evaluated from the paper, that there are some of the key principles associated with the standards, which makes the process of management systems convenient. However, there is a difference in the standards in the manner that ISO 9001 focuses on the customer satisfaction widely, while, the other two focuses on the aspects of health, safety, and environment. Furthermore, it is analysed by the gap analysis that difference exists between these standards.  This gives rise to the addition of processes and procedures in the system of the organisation for the purpose of achieving compliance.  The legal compliance is another main feature that needs to be achieved by the organisation in order to integrate ISO 9001 with ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001. The organisation can gain improvement in the context of quality, environment as well as health and safety that forms the basis of success for any business as these are considered as the most important concept by the customers and management.

Recommendations

In order to integrated ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 with ISO 9001 for management systems, the selected organisation that is Production Engineering Solutions, some of the recommendations are as follows:

• The senior management team must at first evaluate the current position of the ISO 9001 quality management system so that integration can be made without trouble
• They must set proper, clear and definite objectives and targets in order to ensure that business processes proceed to keep in view the requirements of management system (Ivanova, et al., 2014)
• The requirements and rules highlighted in the standards that are ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 must be reviewed and areas of concern must be assessed
• Proper monitoring of the business processes and the additional procedures needed to implement the integrated management system must be evaluated
• The environmental as well as health and safety policy must be created and incorporated to evaluate the impact on performance

The management must monitor and control the procedures to ensure that objectives and target are achievable (Fernandez-Muniz, et al., 2012).

 

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