The ISO Definitions of a “Management System”

The ISO definition of a management system was changed with the 2015 revision of the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards when ISO required the use of consistent definitions, as set forth in mandatory standard development guidelines, for all of its management system standards.

The definition of a management system for all ISO standards is a “set of interrelated or interacting elements of an organization to establish policies and objectives and processes to achieve those objectives.”

What changes from standard to standard is the focus of what is being managed.

For the ISO 9001 standard, it is a  “management system  to direct and control an organization  with regard to quality.”

For the ISO 14001 standard, it is the “part of the management system used to manage environmental aspects, fulfill compliance obligations and address risks and opportunities.”

For the ISO 45001 standard, it is a “management system or part of a management system used to achieve the OH&S policy” where the OH&S Policy is defined as “a policy to prevent work-related injury and ill health to workers and to provide safe and healthy workplaces.”

What is interesting about the ISO definition is the explicit focus on defining a management system in terms of the task of  establishing policies and achieving objectives.  This focus on establishing and implementing a policy and achieving objectives is not part of the dictionary definitions for management.

There are a variety of ways you can go about deciding what a word or phrase means.  You can ask an expert, you can ask several experts, you can take an opinion survey or you can look it up in a dictionary.  Part 1 of this series takes the approach of looking it up in the dictionary (or more accurately — a dictionary of dictionaries — www.dictionary.com).

Part 2 will examine the definition of a “management system” set out in ISO standards.

A Dictionary Definition

If one approaches this as a tautological exercise, one can break the term “management system” into its component parts of “management” and “system,” define each and then combine the two definitions back together again into a single definition for a “management system.”

Using this approach, one can define the word “management” as the act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control and the word “system” as a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.  Combining these definitions, one gets the following definition for a “management system”  – the act of managing a group of interacting, interrelated or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.  This is a traditional definition.

On the other hand, by combining a different set of definitions for “management” and “system” from alternative on-line dictionaries, one can get the following, more cynical, definition — a social, economic or political organizational form used by individuals who are distinguished primarily by their distance from actual productive work and their chronic failure to manage.

For those who appreciate Dilbert cartoons, this represents an alternative view of “management systems” as they are perceived to exist in some organizations.

NOTE: This blog post was first published on the OHSAS 18001 Expert website on 5/7/2007.

The OHSAS 18001 standard has been replaced by the ISO 45001 standard so I decided to sunset the OHSAS18001expert website.

Some of the blogs posted on this site will be revived from posts on the previous website. Some will be new.

What I found in reviewing posts from the OHSAS 18001 website for posting here is the basics haven’t changed for Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) management systems.

It has always been, and likely always will be, about protecting worker health and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace.