ABSTRACT

This chapter is aimed at those with responsibility for the performance of an organization and those charged with formalizing, managing and improving the systems that enable the organization to fulfil its goals. It will interest students, consultants, auditors, managers and most importantly top management who often look upon management systems as a bureaucratic necessity to qualify the organization as a supplier in a particular market. What should become clear is that far from being a bureaucratic necessity, when the organization becomes a system of managed processes, a management system is just another name for an organization. It is an essential reading for those setting out to take a systems approach to management and develop a process based management system. More detail on this latter point can be found in Establishing a quality management system in Chapter 10 but first it is important for you to have an understanding of management systems or systems of managed processes.