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STUDIA OECONOMICA POSNANIENSIA 2016, vol. 4, no. 10
DOI: 10.18559/SOEP.2016.10.9
Piotr Kafel
Cracow University of Economics, Faculty of Commodity Science, Department
of Quality Management
piotr.kafel@uek.krakow.pl
BENEFITS OF MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION
Abstract: e number of implemented and certied management systems in orga-
nizations is growing. In 2013 there were more than 1.1 million organizations with
certied ISO 9001 management system. A big number of companies implement
also other management systems and integrate them. e purpose of this paper is
to analyze the benets of integration of management systems in Polish organiza-
tions. e presented results are based on data obtained from 81 organizations that
have implemented and certify at least two standardized management systems. e
organizations were divided into 3 groups with dierent level of integration of
implemented management systems. e level of integration was measured by the
degree of integration of the system goals, resources and processes. As a top rated
benets of integration have been found such benets as: Unication objectives,
processes and resources, improving the eectiveness and eciency of the organiza-
tion and avoiding of duplication. Organizations that integrated their management
systems on an average level, calculated as the integration of goals, procedures and
documentation, achieve the greatest benet from the integration process. More-
over, in the group of organizations, that integrated more than 3 management
systems, benets of integration were higher than in companies where only two
or three systems were integrated.
Keywords: integration, management systems, benets, ISO 9001.
JEL classication: L29, M11, M19.
Benets of management systems integration 123
KORZYŚCI Z INTEGRACJI SYSTEMÓW ZARZĄDZANIA
Streszczenie: Liczba wdrażanych i certykowanych na świecie systemów zarządza-
nia wzrasta. W 2013 roku odnotowano ponad 1,1 miliona organizacji, które po-
siadały certykowany system zarządzania jakością zgodny z wymaganiami normy
ISO 9001. Duża liczba przedsiębiorstw wdraża również inne systemy zarządzania
i integruje je w jeden system. Celem artykułu jest wskazanie korzyści wynikających
z procesu integracji wdrożonych systemów w polskich organizacjach. Przedstawio-
ne wyniki badań uzyskane zostały na podstawie analizy odpowiedzi uzyskanych
od przedstawicieli 81 organizacji, które wdrożyły co najmniej 2 różne systemy za-
rządzania. Badane organizacje podzielono na trzy grupy, które charakteryzowały
się różnym poziomem integracji systemów. Poziom integracji został oszacowany
na podstawie poziomu integracji celów, zasobów oraz procesów. Za najważniejsze
korzyści z integracji systemów uznano: ujednolicenie celów, procesów i zasobów,
poprawa skuteczności i efektywności działań organizacji oraz unikanie powielania
się dokumentacji systemowej. Organizacje, które zintegrowały swoje systemy na
średnim poziomie osiągnęły największe korzyści z tego procesu. Ponadto grupa
organizacji poddały integracji trzy lub więcej systemów zarządzania wskazywały
na wyższe korzyści wynikające z integracji niż organizacje które zintegrowały wy-
łącznie dwa systemy zarządzania.
Słowa kluczowe: Integracja, systemy zarządzania, korzyści, ISO 9001.
Introduction
Implementation of management standards is very popular in organizations.
e most popular management standard is quality management standard
described in ISO 9000 series. According to International Standard Organi-
zation (ISO), in 2013 there were more than 1.1 million organizations with
implemented and certied ISO 9001 management system. ISO 9001 is the
leading standard on quality management but there are also other quality
management systems which are implemented in organizations e.g. ISO/TS
16949:2009, ISO 13485:2003 [ISO 2013]. Popularity of ISO 9001 standard,
resulted in the development of other management standards such as: ISO
14001, ISO 22000, ISO/IEC 27001, IS0 50001, OHSAS 18001, PN-N 18001.
All above mentioned standards are implemented in companies. ose stan-
dards can be classied according to three main criteria [Bugdol and Jedy-
nak 2014, p. 129]:
124 Piotr Kafel
– the objective of a management system developed in terms of a giv-
en standard,
– the application of a standard as the basis for the organizational develop-
ment of a business area
– the universality of a given standard.
In Table 1 there are examples of management standards and classied
according to above mentioned criteria.
Table 1. e examples of the major management system standards
Criterion Types of standards Examples
Objective To ensure product/service quality ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, TL
9000, AS 9100, AQAP
To ensure food safety HACCP, BRC, IFS, ISO 22000
To reduce an organization’s opera-
tional risk
ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001,
PN-N 18001, ISO 27001,
ISO 22301, ISO 28000,
ISO 31000, ISO 55001
To improve an organization’s results
and image
ISO 26000, ISO 50001
Business area Quality management ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, TL
9000, AS 9100
Food safety and hygiene management HACCP, BRC, IFS, ISO 22000
Environmental management ISO 14001
Occupational health and safety
Management
OHSAS 18001, PN-N 18001
Information security management ISO 27001
Business continuity management ISO 22301
Supply chain security management ISO 28000
Risk management ISO 31000
Social responsibility management ISO 26000
Energy eciency management ISO 50001
Universality Universal ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS
18001, ISO 27001, ISO 22301,
ISO 28000, ISO 31000,
ISO 55001.
Sector-related ISO/TS 16949, TL 9000, AQAP,
AS 9100, HACCP, BRC, IFS,
ISO 22000
Source: Based on: [Bugdol and Jedynak 2014, p. 130].
Benets of management systems integration 125
In some cases more than one management standard is implemented in
one organization, and that leads to a natural need to integrate some of the
elements of individual systems.
Many of the requirements in management standards are common and
this can be accommodated under one generic management system. Ac-
cording to PAS 99 specication, integration of management systems help
organizations to achieve benets such as: improve business focus, a more
holistic approach to managing business risks, less conict between systems,
reduced duplication and bureaucracy and more eective and ecient au-
dits both internally and externally [BS/2006, pp. 3–4].
ere are also other than PAS 99 normative models of management sys-
tem integration. e most popular ones are Global SAI. AS/NZS 4581:1999,
HB 10190:2001, NTS (1996), DS 8001:2005, UNE 66177:2005 [Kafel and
Sikora 2010, pp. 45–53]. ere are many descriptions of models of integra-
tion of management standards in literature, e.g.:[Karapetrovic and Willborn
1998, pp. 204–213; Wilkinson and Dale 2001, pp. 318–330; Oliveira 2013,
pp. 124–133; Rebelo, Santos, and Silva 2014, pp. 143–159]. Despite the exis-
tence of the models allowing the integration of management systems, most
polish companies did not benet from the guidelines contained in them,
and led the integration of systems in their own way [Nowicki, Kafel, and
Sikora 2013, pp. 93–102].
ere have been many studies investigating organizations’ motivations
for certication of dierent management standards, their implementation
experiences and the benets received [Masoud, Daily, and Bishop 2011,
pp. 5–19]. Some of the benets are resulted from the implementation of the
systems and some are related to the integration of the standards [Simon,
Karapetrovic, and Casadesús 2012, pp. 828–846].
Benets of management system integration are discussed for instance
in: [Karapetrovic and Willborn 1998, pp. 204–213; Wilkinson and Dale
2001, pp. 318–330; Douglas and Glen 2000, pp. 686–690; Zutshi and Sohal
2005, pp. 211–232; Rocha, Searcy, and Karapetrovic 2007, pp. 83–92; Salo-
mone 2008, pp. 1786–1806; Zeng 2011, pp. 173–187; Ejdys 2011, pp. 69–84;
Simon, Karapetrovic, and Casadesús 2012, pp. 828–846] present improve-
ments related to having an integrated system such as costs savings (e.g.
costs of certication), operational benets, better external image, improved
communication across the organization, improved customer satisfaction
and enhanced employee motivation.
126 Piotr Kafel
1. Materials and methods
e methodology used to collect the data was a survey mailed in 2014 to
a sample of Polish organizations registered to at least two management
systems selected from popular international standards, e.g.: ISO 9001,
ISO 14001, PN-N 18001, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 22000. e main reason for
conducting the study in Poland was because it is one of the countries with
the average number of registered MSS, ranking 11 place in Europe with
ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certicates [ISO 2012]. It is possible to obtain
a sample big enough to analyze the order of MSSs implementation in
a country which is not in the top in the word in terms of issued certicates
and popularity of MSSs implementation. Not without signicance was also
origin of the author. e survey was send to 885 organizations located in
Poland. ere were 81 valid questioners obtained, representing 9.2% re-
spond rate.
According to the European Commission’s [2003] classication, there are
24.7% of small organizations, having 50 employees or less in the studied
sample. About 37.0% of medium sized organizations with the number of
employees between 51 and 250, while 38.3% are large organizations having
more than 250 employees.
With respect to implemented MSS in studied organizations, all have im-
plemented ISO 9001 standard. Two other popular standards that are widely
implemented are environmental management standard ISO 14001 – 67.9%
and occupational health and safety management standard according to Pol-
ish or British standard (PN-N 18001, BS OHSAS 18001) – 50.6%. Both
Polish and British OHSAS standards are modied and adopted guidelines
developed by International Labour Organization and have quite similar re-
quirements and goals [Sung-woon, Kyu-hwan, and Tae-gu 2012, pp. 1085–
1089]. Due to that this standards are considered in the study as a OHSAS
standard, without distinguishing between them.
Other standards implemented in organizations represented less than
20 percent of the population. Most commonly implemented and certied
among those systems are AQAP standards 19.8%, ISO/IEC 27001 – 9.9%
and internal control process (ICS) / PN-N 19001 – 9.9%. Within studied
organizations there were 36% which had two management standards inte-
grated, 35% with three systems, 22% with four systems, 5% with ve man-
agement systems and 2% with six management systems.
e level of integration of MSSs was measured by the degree of integra-
tion of the system goals, resources and processes. In the survey, the organi-
Benets of management systems integration 127
zations indicated whether certain aspects of integration were fully integrat-
ed, partially integrated or not integrated. Only organizations that declared
the integration of MSS answer the questions about the level of integration.
In order to measure the degree of integration of system goals, resources and
processes 5 point Likert scale were used. In the survey open-ended ques-
tions were used to gain the information about the implanted systems and
the time of the implementation.
at kind of measure is popular and used by other authors [Seghezzi
1997, pp. 42–49; Kirkby 2002, pp. 2–4; Karapetovic 2002, pp. 61–67; 2003,
pp. 4–13; Pojasek 2006, pp. 89–97; Bernardo et al. 2009, pp. 742–750; 2012,
pp. 291–307].
e results of the study are presented in the next section. Data process-
ing was largely descriptive in nature. is descriptive analysis enables an
illustration of the benets of integration of management systems in pol-
ish companies.
2. Results and discussion
Studied organizations were asked about the integration of management
standards and benets that were obtained from the integration. Within
the group of 81 companies, only three organizations haven’t integrated the
management systems. e main reasons not to integrate the implemented
management systems were as follow:
1. Dierent branches / subsidiaries in which there were implemented vari-
ous systems, eg. ISO 9001 in one localization and ISO 14001 in another
one. at reason was indicated by two organizations as a most impor-
tant reason.
2. e possibility of faster implementation of the second and subsequent
standards without their integration.
3. Lack of interest and lack of resources for integration. at reasons were
indicated as a most important one by two organizations.
Companies that hadn’t integrated their management standards also
hadn’t indicated such reasons as: problems with understanding of the stan-
dards or excessive requirements of the new standards which were seated
as a reasons by Karapetrovic [Karapetrovic, Casadesus, and Heras 2006,
pp. 41–53]. e other 78 companies have integrated at least at some level
their management system. Figure 1. shows the benets of management sys-
tems integration in that companies.
128 Piotr Kafel
All studied companies indicate some benets of the integration. ere
are some studies that point out lack of benets in a personnel perspective
[Ejdys 2011, pp. 69–70]. In this study, it is presented management opinion
about the benets, which is dierent than the sta opinion [Ejdys 2011,
pp. 69–70]. Unication objectives, processes and resources according to
studied organizations was the most important benet of management sys-
tem integration. Improving the eectiveness and eciency of the organiza-
tion was second most important benet obtained by the organizations. e
third best scored benet was avoiding of duplication. e rst three benets
identied by the organization, are an internal one. at result indicates that
integration is an internal process driven by internal motivations and mostly
it is performed to enable the common operation of multiple systems.
Surprisingly, indicated benets of integration does not correlate with
the perception of a reduction in operating costs of the system. e costs
reduction, e.g. by reducing the number of internal and external audits, was
indicated as the lowest from all other benets arising from the integration.
Only 12 company representatives scored that benet on 5 in 5-point Lik-
ert scale.
e average result for all studied companies was 3.31. e availability
of common training and better communication at all levels of manage-
ment was the second less scored benet in studied companies. Some of the
012345
Increasing the competitiveness of the company
Improving theeffectiveness and efficiency of
the organization
Avoiding duplication
Reducingbureaucracy by eliminating
duplication of policies, procedures and records
Unification objectives,processes and resources
Reducecosts, eg.by reducing the number of
internal and external audits
Theavailability of commontrainingand better
communication at alllevels of management
Increasecustomer satisfaction
Increaseemployeesatisfaction
Figure 1. Benets of management systems integration
Benets of management systems integration 129
organizations pointed out other benets of integration. at benets were
related to: improving the company’s image, fulllment of the conditions of
contract and increase of employee engagement in management system im-
provement.
In Table 2 there are presented indicated benets of management inte-
gration, in organizations divided by the number of management system
integrated in that organizations.
Table 2. Benets of management system integration in companies with dierent
number of systems integrated
Number
of mana-
gement
systems
integrated
Benets of management systems integration
Increasing the competitiveness of the
company
Improving the eectiveness and ef-
ciency of the organization
Avoiding duplication
Reducing bureaucracy by eliminat-
ing duplication of policies, proce-
dures and records
Unication objectives, processes and
resources
Reduce costs, eg. by reducing the
number of internal and external
audits
e availability of common train-
ing and better communication at all
levels of management
Increase customer satisfaction
Increase employee satisfaction
2 systems 3.67 4.04 3.86 3.68 4.18 3.39 3.36 3.89 3.46
3 systems 3.56 3.92 3.80 3.64 3.88 3.12 3.36 3.88 3.32
More than 3
systems 3.76 4.14 4.18 3.50 4.27 3.41 3.27 3.86 3.55
In the group of organizations, that integrated more than 3 management
systems, benets of integration were the higher that in companies where
only two or three systems were integrated. Exception to this rule are such
benets as: reducing of bureaucracy, the availability of common training
and increase of customer satisfaction.
Studied companies were divided into three groups of organizations ac-
cording to their similarities in the level of integration1. In rst group of
organizations there are 42 organizations and it’s the largest group, repre-
senting 51.8% of the sample. e average level of integration of goals and
1 Detailed description of the three group is provided in: [Kafel and Casadesus, 2016].
130 Piotr Kafel
documentation is 94.7%, while integration of procedures is on the average
level of 97.72%.
Second group is made up of 17 organizations representing 20.9% of the
sample. Organizations belonging to that group have integrated MSSs on the
lowest level of all 3 groups of organizations.
In the group no. 3 there are only 13 organizations, representing 16% of
the sample. It is the lowest group of organizations that was obtained dur-
ing the cluster analyses. e average level of integration of companies from
group three, is between the other two groups of organizations. e average
level of integration of goals and documentation is 77.7%, while integration
of procedures is on the average level of 95.8%.
Figure 2 shows the benets of management systems integration in stud-
ied companies divided into three groups of organizations with dierent
level of integration.
Data presented on gure 2 suggest, that in the group no. 3, the benets
of integration are top rated. Within the group no. 2, which is the group with
the lowest level of integration in most cases the benets of integration indi-
cated by organizations are also the lowest. Only in case of two questioned
benets: increasing the competitiveness of the company and reduction of
012345
Increasing the competitiveness of the company
Improving theeffectiveness and efficiency of the
organization
Avoiding duplication
Reducingbureaucracy by eliminating duplication
of policies, procedures and records
Unification objectives,processes and resources
Reducecosts, eg.by reducing the number of
internal and external audits
Theavailability of commontrainingand better
communication at alllevels of management
Increase customer satisfaction
Increase employee satisfaction
Group3 Group 2 Group1
Figure 2. Benets of management systems integration in three groups of orga-
nizations
Benets of management systems integration 131
cost, obtained benets are higher than in a group of organizations with
higher level of integration.
e results obtained in research are similar to those, that were obtained
in other studies, for instance in [Simon, Karapetrovic, and Casadesús 2012,
pp. 828–846]. A new aspect of presented results is the division of the stud-
ied organizations into groups with dierent level of management system in-
tegration.
Conclusions
e objective of this paper was to analyze the benets of integration ob-
tained by polish organizations. As a top rated benets of integration have
been found such benets as: Unication objectives, processes and resources
according, improving the eectiveness and eciency of the organization
and avoiding of duplication. Organizations that integrated their manage-
ment systems on an average level, calculated as the integration of goals,
procedures and documentation, achieve the greatest benet from the in-
tegration process. Moreover, in the group of organizations, that integrated
more than 3 management systems, benets of integration were higher than
in companies where only two or three systems were integrated.
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