A management system is the framework of processes and procedures used to ensure that an organization can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its objectives.
For instance, an environmental management system enables organizations to improve their environmental performance through a process of continuous improvement. An oversimplification is "Plan, Do, Check, Act". A more complete system would include accountability (an assignment of personal responsibility) and a schedule for activities to be completed, as well as auditing tools to implement corrective actions in addition to scheduled activities, creating an upward spiral of continuous improvement.
Also as in the aforementioned management system, an occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) enables an organization to control its occupational health and safety risks and to improve its performance by means of continuous improvement.
Examples of management system standards include:
- ISO 9001 Quality Management,
- ISO 14001 Environmental Management,
- ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management,
- SA8000 Social Accountability.
Famous quotes containing the words management and/or system:
“The care of a house, the conduct of a home, the management of children, the instruction and government of servants, are as deserving of scientific treatment and scientific professors and lectureships as are the care of farms, the management of manure and crops, and the raising and care of stock.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)