| dc.description.abstract | Quality assurance, an industrial process designed to manage and update the quality system, is
able to continuously guarantee and demonstrate that the system conforms to the agreed set of
specific conditions and standards. However, quality does not rest only with organization's
products and services. Quality and quality assurance of the natural environment have been
perceived as an urgent management issue. As a result "environmental system" has emerged in
line with quality system.
The ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards share similar management techniques and principles.
Both of them require organizations to formulate policies, to define roles and responsibilities, to
appoint management representatives, and to train personnel. Implementing both ISO 9001 and
ISO 14001 demands many duplicate management tasks. For example, both ISO 9001 and ISO
14001 require all working procedures to be traceable and auditable. Therefore, two separate
documentation systems are needed to meet their requirements which involve a lot of
documentation, written procedure, checking, control forms, and other paper work. In practice, it
has been proved difficult to deal with separate management systems covering quality and
environment.
The study intended to find out the approach in implementation of quality and environmental
management systems as an integrated management system (IMS) in the Kenyan companies that
have implemented both ISO 9001 :200{}-and ISO 14001: 1996 as an IMS, and also identify the
benefits and challenges of implementing the IMS. .I,he approach of introducing an IMS in the
majority of the companies was found to be QMS then EMS. On the approaches that the
organizations adopted in integrating Quality and Environment management system, the
researcher found out that majority of the firms adopted merging of documentation through
similarities in the structure and merging of documentation through the content of the standards.
The research also revealed that the perceived benefits of implementing an integrated
management system (IMS), in Kenya's firms were that; integrated systems could reduce the
requirement for resources and reduce multiple audits avoiding duplication.
The researcher found the challenges of implementing an integrated management system (IMS),
in Kenya's firms to be predominant focus on certification and management not understanding the
concept of IMS thereby not supporting the implementation. Organization must manage change
and overcome the barriers that may hinder the successful implementation of an IMS. The barriers
include predominant focus on certification and lack of management support.
The study concluded that there is synergy between the QMS and EMS. Total quality includes
concern for the environment since protecting the environment is required for improving the
quality of life. There are advantages in implementing QMS and EMS as IMS such as
establishment of an integrated and optimal performance management system from the start,
Integrating audit procedures with those for other management systems to avoid duplication of
effort in order to reduce costs and reducing duplication of effort in order to reduce multiple
audits, there by giving an organization competitive advantage.
In summary the study recommends that organizations should not focus on certification when
implementing management systems especially integrated systems. The research also
recommends that an organizations management should be committed to understanding and
supporting implementation of IMS. Organizations should then enhance utilization of resources
by implementing systems as IMS in Kenyan firms to reap benefits such as reduced
implementation and audit costs while improving quality of our environments . | en |
