Although there are a lot of positives that come with an Intergrated Management System (IMS), there are some challenges. These challenges are not to scare a company away from an IMS or to put a negative outlook onto a IMS; it is to educate. Although there are a handful of challenges, if your company is willing to put in the time and effort, the IMS will be worth every minute spent on it
Complexity
- Combining Many Standards can Create a Complex System: It can be hard for a company to gather all the requirements needed for all of the ISO certifications they have into one management system
- There Must be a Good Planning and Management to Ensure all Requirements are Met: There must be a good management system put into place to ensure all requirements are covered. This will be a bigger and more in-depth management system than your company, possibly, has ever seen so it can take a lot of time and effort to get the system put into place and working
Resource Allocation
- Requires Significant Time, Effort, and Financial Resources: A IMS is very in-depth and due to this it involves a lot of time, effort, and resources to get it started. Once started it will still require many resources to ensure it continues to run correctly
- Manage Resources Properly to Ensure the Integration Process is Effective: Having so many resources working together to achieve one goal can be hard. The company must make sure that they are dividing up the amount of time and effort each resource is spending to ensure that the IMS is effective and successful
Change Management
- Employees May be Hesitant or Resist Changes: Implementing an IMS is such a big change that employees may be hesitant at first. Especially with the effort and time that goes into implementing one. But if properly explained, employees will learn to see and appreciate the ease of having an IMS
Consistency and Alignment
- Ensuring All Parts of the Organization are Aligned: With the whole company working towards one goal, it can sometimes get difficult ensuring that everything is aligned and organized in the best way possible to ensure the success of the IMS
- Different Departments may have Different Needs and Practices: Combining from many branches working separately to now working together may be difficult. Each sector may have previous practices of doing tasks or may require different things compared to other sectors
Documentation
- Keeping Comprehensive and Readable Documentation: It can be difficult to ensure that all information gathered is going to be comprehensive and readable when there are so many different sectors involved in the creation of the information
- Need to Ensure All Aspects are Covered: Combining many different management systems and requirements into one giant management system that covers everything can cause come things to be repeated (mentioned below) or forgotten. A company needs to ensure that they are covering all requirements for all ISO certifications covered by the IMS to ensure it is successful and reduce risk for noncompliance
Auditing and Certification
- The Auditing System can be More Complex: Due to all ISO certifications now being tied together then auditing process itself will be more in-depth and complex than before. However, in the long run it would be simpler for your company to use an IMS
- Requires More Preparation and Coordination: Because the IMS covers many different ISO certifications, it can require more preparation and coordination before an audit. However, the same work would have to be done with or without the IMS because the certifications are still going to be audited, the only differences is they are all now done at the same time
Risk of Overlap and Redundancy
- Without Careful Planning There Could be an Overlap in Processes and Documentation: When implementing so many systems together into one good management system a company needs to be careful in ensuring that there is no overlap between ensuring all requirements for the different ISO certifications are met and combining everything into one system
Continuous Improvement
- Requires Ongoing Monitoring and Improvement: The IMS is not a one and done deal. Once it is implemented there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure it continues to run correctly and is successful
- Establish Ways to Review and Enhance the System on a Regular Basis: To ensure the success of the IMS a company must ensure that the system is reviewed on a regular basis and must decide how they want that review done and the most effective way of doing so
