An instrument for the assessment of management systems integration

Abstract: Management systems, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 have been increasingly employed in organizations and their joint use has led to a trend towards their integration. Many benefits, as improvement in decision making, reduction in the risk of development of redundant and conflicting activities, and a better use of resources can be obtained through integration. Therefore, an instrument that assesses the degree of maturity of Integrated Management Systems (IMS) should be employed in organizations for improvements in the integration. According to a literature review conducted in this study, no research that takes the concept of maturity models as a point of support has focused on the evaluation of such maturity level in IMS. An exploratory review, a systematic literature review on IMS, and a literature search regarding maturity models were performed. A tool assessed by academic experts and industry professionals was developed and involved 21 questions divided into 4 areas, namely Policy; Planning; Implementation / Execution; and Verification / Action. An overview of research into IMS, as well as the tool developed can be highlighted in the present research. It can be concluded that the number of studies on IMS has increased over the years, which is important from the point of view of both the market and the academic area.