Development and Implementation of Integrated Quality Management Systems in Russia

This paper is devoted to a currently active area of scholars' research - integrated quality management systems (IQMS). Despite the high prevalence of IQMS in the US and European economies, until recently, in Russian organizations, separate management systems for each particular area were considered to be the norm: ecology, quality management of products, health and safety of personnel, etc. The reasons for the low prevalence of IQMS in small organizations in Russia are observed. We discuss such major factors as, for instance, the lack of a unified model for the formation and implementation of an IQMS at the enterprise. The methods for calculating the costs of practical implementation of IQMS, depending on the resource and organizational requirements for improving the efficiency, are not standardized. Specific measures are proposed in order to encourage the development and penetration of IQMS in Russian organizations. Attention is paid to the development of remote outsourcing organizations that build integrated quality management systems for contracting firms and allow achieving economic efficiency through economies of scale, including through the virtual integration of several small and mediumsized enterprises. The issues of developing unified schemes for the implementation of IQMS for different types of organizations, depending on the industry and other specifics, were discussed.