Barómetro da Certificação 2014

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Sistemas de gestão integrados: desenvolvimento de um modelo para avaliação do nível de maturidade

Tese de doutoramento do Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Industrial e de SistemasIntegração é definida como “o ato ou processo de tornar inteiro” e sistema como “arranjo de elementos interrelacionados e interatuantes, tais como processos que utilizam vários recursos de modo a atingir objetivos predefinidos”. As organizações humanas despendem uma grande quantidade de trabalho a desafiar um dos conceitos mais básicos da física: a entropia. A “ponta do iceberg” visível desta guerra intestina contra a tendência das organizações para a desordem são os sistemas de gestão. Os sistemas de gestão mais reportados a coexistirem num Sistema de Gestão Integrado (SGI) são o Sistema de Gestão da Qualidade (SGQ), implementado segundo a norma ISO 9001, o Sistema de Gestão Ambiental (SGA), implementado segundo a norma ISO 14001 e o Sistema de Gestão de Segurança e Saúde no Trabalho (SGSST), implementado segundo a norma OHSAS 18001. O objetivo do trabalho realizado foi o de analisar o fenómeno da integração de sistemas de gestão, identificar áreas de investigação abertas, propor soluções para colmatá-las, nomeadamente através do desenvolvimento de um modelo que permita avaliar a maturidade de um SGI. Como ponto de partida, a revisão bibliográfica efetuada procedeu ao levantamento de todas as questões abordadas pela literatura científica relacionada com a integração de sistemas e com modelos de maturidade e, a partir da caracterização do estado-da-arte, identificou as áreas para as quais ainda não há respostas ou onde, apesar de já existirem, as mesmas são de natureza difusa. Constatou-se que a integração de sistemas de gestão é um fenómeno caracterizado pelo número elevado de variáveis envolvidas, nomeadamente, a estratégia utilizada, o processo de implementação, a tipologia de auditorias e o nível de integração atingido, entre outras. A revisão bibliográfica inicial permitiu também o desenvolvimento de questionários, que se revelou a principal metodologia de investigação adotada. O recurso a metodologias alternativas na análise de resultados confirmou a relação existente entre as motivações iniciais para implementação de um SGI e os benefícios daí resultantes. A clarificação da posição do SGQ num contexto de integração, identificando as várias posições que este subsistema pode assumir, contribuiu com informação crítica para a gestão de topo, focando o sucesso do processo de integração. O contributo final desta tese consubstanciou-se na elaboração de um modelo de maturidade que permite avaliar a maturidade de um SGI assente em dois componentes: o back office e o front office. Esta tarefa permitiu que outros contributos fossem também possíveis, nomeadamente, a realização de uma macro-análise ao fenómeno da integração de sistemas de gestão a nível mundial, ao desenvolvimento de indicadores macro e à avaliação da sua assertividade por comparação com outros indicadores baseados em diferentes fontes. A natureza diversa da pesquisa bibliográfica realizada permitiu também a identificação de conceitos externos ao processo de integração, mas cuja adoção permite um acréscimo à maturidade dos SGIs. Tópicos como a avaliação e gestão do ciclo de vida, a macroergonomia, a sustentabilidade e a responsabilidade social foram identificados como coadjuvantes para uma integração mais profunda, contribuindo para um SGI com maior maturidade. O desenvolvimento de indicadores macro para avaliação da dispersão a nível mundial dos SGIs permitiu concluir que a sua evolução, durante o período temporal de 1999 a 2011, se traduz num acréscimo acentuado em todas as macro regiões consideradas. A nível nacional, as empresas que desenvolveram um SGI situam-se, principalmente, nas regiões Norte, Centro e de Lisboa sendo a tipologia de SGI mais adotada aquela na qual estão integrados os SGQ, SGA e SGSST. Os resultados do questionário dirigido aos peritos permitiram distinguir empresas com um alto nível de integração. A utilização das mesmas ferramentas e metodologias organizacionais em cada subsistema e o alinhamento de objetivos, bem como o facto de a empresa monitorizar os seus processos com base em indicadores integrados são evidências de um nível de integração máximo. No modelo de maturidade desenvolvido é possível constatar que três variáveis dão um contributo superior às restantes para a variável latente “Maturidade do SGI”. São elas a visão integrada revelada pela gestão de topo, a classificação do nível de integração atingido e a tipologia de auditorias realizadas.Integration is defined as “the act or process of making whole or entire” and System defined as “an interrelated elements array, such as processes, using several resources to achieve set goals”. Human organizations take a lot of work in order to defy basic physics laws namely entropy. The visible “iceberg peak” of this subtle war against organizations disorder trend are the management systems. The most commonly reported subsystems combined into a single Integrated Management System (IMS) are the Quality Management System (QMS) implemented according ISO 9001 standard, the Environmental Management System (EMS) implemented according ISO 14001 standard and the Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSMS) implemented according OHSAS 18001 standard. The main objective of this thesis is to analyse all management systems integration phenomenon, to identify open research paths and to present solutions, namely, through a model development aiming at IMS maturity assessment. The thorough literature review undertaken, focused on open questions identification related to IMS and maturity models, depicted some unanswered questions, some with diffuse answers and some questions never made. The initial literature review allowed the development of the surveys focused on the organizations and on the selected academic and industry experts being this methodology the thesis corner stone. A back office and front office based maturity model development assessing IMS was the ultimate contribution from this thesis. This contribution, on its own, and sustained on multi-methodological tasks, allowed some other contributions, namely, the macro analysis of the management systems integration phenomenon worldwide, macro-indicators development and their evaluation by comparison with other indicators based on different sources. Some alternative methodologies adopted on results analysis contributed on some issues raised by several authors, namely, by confirming the relation between IMS implementation initial motivation and the benefits collected afterwards. Additionally, the QMS reposition after the integration process was assessed and three main strategies were identified. This identification enables top management with crucial information aiming at an integration successful process. Literature review allowed also external concepts identification that relates to IMS maturity. Topics like life cycle management and assessment, macroergonomics, sustainability and social accountability should be taken into account, enabling a deeper integration, and a more mature IMS. The results promoted several critical success factors identification that should be considered when integrating management subsystems. Some characteristics intrinsically related to high integration level organizations and low integration level organizations were identified. It was possible to conclude that management systems integration phenomenon is characterized by the high number of variables involved. The adopted strategy, the implementation process, the audit typology, the IMS typology, the motivation, the benefits, the obstacles and the achieved integration level are among those variables. Through macro-indicators development aiming the IMS dispersion worldwide analysis one may conclude that they evolved positively and increased in number during the time period between 1999 and 2011. At a national level, it is possible to conclude that the organizations that developed an IMS are mostly located at the North, Centre and Lisbon regions. The integrated QMS, EMS and OHSMS is the IMS typology mostly adopted. The results collected from the survey among academic and industry experts allowed the identification of high integration level organizations. According to these results, the development and adoption of the same tools and methodologies by each subsystem and objectives alignment, processes monitoring based in integrated indicators are evidences of a maximum integration level. The maturity model final version allows the conclusion that three variables contribute the mostly to the “IMS Maturity” latent variable. Those variables are the integrated vision by top management, the integration level classification and the audit typology. External concepts and the eight excellence management pillars relate also to the IMS maturity

Quality scoreboard: a proposal

Purpose: The assessment of “macroquality” or the assessment of the degree to which the quality practices are implemented in a country or a region should not be only based on “tangible” indicators such as the number of certified companies according to the ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 standards, or others. By adopting only these two indicators (or similar ones) a large amount of companies, those ones that are not certified, are not considered when assessing the “macroquality”. Less tangible features, such as the number of persons trained in quality management or the number of members of quality management associations among other features, contribute themselves and seem appropriate to assess the level of “macroquality”. This paper intends to report a “macroquality” index that is composed by tangible and less tangible features, concerning the quality practices implementation concept- The Quality Scoreboard. Design/methodology/approach: An expert’s panel was conducted with the aim of evaluating a set of several indicators that could be used to assess and to monitor the “macroquality” level of a country. Nine tangible indicators were proposed and been analysed by the experts’ panel according to an importance scale (1 to 5). Additionally, the experts were encouraged to propose other indicators that could reflect the quality state-of-the-art of a country or region. Findings: Experts find that tangible indicators are not enough to express the level of “macroquality”. According to the results, less tangible features should be considered too. A total of 43 indicators were suggested by the experts. Among them, the following suggested indicators should be highlighted: the number of persons trained in quality management, the number of members of quality management associations, the number of quality related courses at the universities and the number of certified auditors. Based on the survey results a Quality Scoreboard was developed. Originality/value: As far as we were able to find out this is the first attempt to develop a Quality Scoreboard, as it had been already done to innovation. This new approach allows one to characterize the quality state-of-the-art of a region, based on a set of potential “quality indicators”. Furthermore, the results provide an additional important contribution to the worldwide study of quality approaches diffusion and evolution

Integrated management systems as complex adaptive systems

It is a difficult task to avoid the “smart systems” topic when discussing smart prevention and, similarly, it is a difficult task to address smart systems without focusing their ability to learn. Following the same line of thought, in the current reality, it seems a Herculean task (or an irreparable omission) to approach the topic of certified occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS) without discussing the integrated management systems (IMSs). The available data suggest that seldom are the OHSMS operating as the single management system (MS) in a company so, any statement concerning OHSMS should mainly be interpreted from an integrated perspective. A major distinction between generic systems can be drawn between those that learn, i.e., those systems that have “memory” and those that have not. These former systems are often depicted as adaptive since they take into account past events to deal with novel, similar and future events modifying their structure to enable success in its environment. Often, these systems, present a nonlinear behavior and a huge uncertainty related to the forecasting of some events. This paper seeks to portray, for the first time as we were able to find out, the IMSs as complex adaptive systems (CASs) by listing their properties and dissecting the features that enable them to evolve and self-organize in order to, holistically, fulfil the requirements from different stakeholders and thus thrive by assuring the successful sustainability of a company. Based on the revision of literature carried out, this is the first time that IMSs are pointed out as CASs which may develop fruitful synergies both for the MSs and for CASs communities. By performing a thorough revision of literature and based on some concepts embedded in the “DNA” of the subsystems implementation standards it is intended, specifically, to identify, determine and discuss the properties of a generic IMS that should be considered to classify it as a CAS

Latest developments aiming an integrated management systems tool focusing maturity assessment

Publicado em "Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE IEEM"Integrated management systems (IMS) widespread among companies due to the release, by international entities, of management sub-systems implementation standards. The integration level achieved by the IMS varies from company to company. Rating the integration level is crucial information. Maturity models have been implemented in several business, product development and in management sub-systems context in order to guide the company to an ultimate excellence level. An IMS maturity model development is, currently, aimed by researchers and a real need in companies. It is intended in this paper to report the efforts that are being made and the methodologies that are being followed to develop such a model. Additionally, it is also intended to present a preliminary model version

Maturity models: a useful solution to assess current OHS management system

Occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS) are implemented worldwide and by an increasing number of companies. Usually this management sub-system is not the first one to be implemented and is seldom the only management sub-system implemented by a company. Therefore, the OHSMS performance is most appropriately assessed if one considers it within an integrated management system (IMS) and, usually co-existing, with a quality management sub-system (QMS) and/ or an environmental management sub-system (EMS). Furthermore, OHSMS actions are often, if not always, constrained by quality and/or environmental requirements. The dynamics of complex systems, such as IMS, have been targeted by numerous researchers in different scientific domains. All of them pointed out that these systems are characterised by a non-linear behaviour and a large amount of variables often related to each other. Maturity models have been adopted to minimise our complexity perception over a truly complex phenomenon. In this sense, maturity models are tools based on a non-deterministic methodology, which enable the assessment by the identification of the most relevant variables that influence their outputs. Ideally, besides this identification, a maturity model should provide information concerning the qualitative and quantitative relationships between variables and how they affect the latent variable, i.e. the maturity level of the maturation object. Regarding OHSMS (maturation object) assessment, one may assess it based solely on OHSMS indicators, but further improvement actions should also rely on the contributions of other implemented management sub-systems, thereby reflecting an integrated context. This fact reformulates the purpose of OHSMS within a company and demands a systemic vision by the OHSMS manager. Some other issues should be considered, too, such as the implementation of integrated indicators, audits and procedures, and the harmonisation through adoption of a common ‘language’ between the sub-systems. Some features concerning the intrinsic philosophy from each sub-system may be benchmarked for the remaining sub-systems, as the systematic risk approach that characterises the OHSMS. It is intended in this paper to report several maturity-model characteristics that enable such models to act as suitable tools for assessing management systems’ maturity and, specifically, that of the OHSMS. Additionally, it is also intended to synthetise all the main features found in the literature review performed, namely: which are the key questions to consider prior to model definition; which limitations should be expected; the definition of the main relevant concepts, such as maturity, capability, maturation and maturation object; and the classification of existing maturity models. Finally, a maturity model enabling integrated management systems assessment will be presented, as well the main advantages of adopting this model, concerning OHSMS features. This model, based on front-office and back-office components, considers the key process agents (KPAs) identified through a systematic literature review, and by the conduct of several case studies of companies, as well as the qualitative and quantitative relationships between these variables and their contribution to the latent variable (IMS maturity level). Ultimately this model translates the OHS management sub-systems’ current reality – namely, the fact that their implementation and daily management are not independent from other management sub-systems and their requirements

Integração de sistemas de gestão. Dados preliminares do projecto para desenvolvimento de uma metodologia para avaliação do nível de maturidade e eficiência

A integração de sub-sistemas de gestão num único sistema, enquadrado numa perspectiva holística, focando diversos requisitos de diferentes partes interessadas é, nos dias de hoje, uma realidade organizacional assumida por grande parte das empresas. Diversos estudos publicados (Wilkinson e Dale, 1999; Wright, 2000; Renzi e Capelli, 2000; Karapetrovic, 2003; Poksinska et al., 2003; Karapetrovic e Jonker, 2003; Zutshi e Sohal, 2003/2005; Beckmerhagen et al., 2003a,b; Zeng et al., 2005; Jorgensen et al., 2006; Bourcier et al., 2007; Salomone, 2008; Kraus e Grosskopf, 2008; Bernardo et al., 2008; Karapetrovic e Casadesús, 2009; Campos e Medeiros, 2009; Asif et al., 2010; Okrapilov, 2010; Tarí et al., 2010; Bernardo et al., 2010; Zeng et al., 2011) prendem-se com esta questão nomeadamente em como implementar um sistema integrado de gestão (SIG), qual o nível de integração atingido, como realizar auditorias a SIG, quais os requisitos necessários para o sucesso da integração, quais as resistências expectáveis e como envolver todas as partes interessadas neste processo. Os dados mais recentes a nível mundial, publicados pela ISO Survey em 2010, revelam que continuam a aumentar quer o número de países com organizações certificadas pelas normas ISO 9001 e ISO 14001, quer o número de certificados ISO 9001 e ISO 14001 emitidos a nível mundial. Dados relativos à penetração da norma OHSAS 18001 nas organizações não são disponibilizados pela ISO, mas tudo leva a crer que seguem uma tendência similar aos dos restantes sub-sistemas de gestão mencionados. Alguns destes dados referem-se, certamente, a organizações possuindo mais do que um sistema de gestão, pelo que, este contínuo incremento de organizações certificadas quer pela ISO 9001 quer pela ISO 14001, implicará um incremento, também, de SIG. Actualmente, o Departamento de Produção e Sistemas da Universidade do Minho desenvolve um projecto cujo objectivo é dar respostas a estas questões específicas enquadradas num objectivo global: o desenvolvimento de uma metodologia que permita avaliar o nível de eficiência e maturidade de um SIG. Baseado em artigos publicados pelos autores e em trabalho actualmente em desenvolvimento, o presente artigo pretende dar a conhecer a revisão bibliográfica desenvolvida sobre o tema, uma proposta conceptual de auditorias internas a sistemas integrados, uma potencial metodologia integrada de avaliação de indicadores, o reposicionamento expectável do sub-sistema de gestão da Qualidade no quadro de integração e os dados de suporte ao fenómeno da integração organizacional

Barómetro da certificação 2016

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Selection of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains for efficient very high gravity bio-ethanol fermentation processes

An optimized very high gravity (VHG) glucose medium supplemented with low cost nutrient sources was used to evaluate bio-ethanol production by 11 Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. The industrial strains PE-2 and CA1185 exhibited the best overall fermentation performance, producing an ethanol titre of 19.2% (v/v) corresponding to a batch productivity of 2.5 g l-1 h-1, while the best laboratory strain (CEN.PK 113-7D) produced 17.5% (v/v) ethanol with a productivity of 1.7 g l-1 h-1. The results presented here emphasize the biodiversity found within S. cerevisiae species and that naturally adapted strains, such as PE-2 and CA1185, are likely to play a key role in facilitating the transition from laboratory technological breakthroughs to industrialscale bio-ethanol fermentations.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - PTDC/BIO/66151/2006, SFRH/ BD/64776/2009, SFRH/BPD/44328/ 200