Mending the patchwork of requirements from multiple standards using participative goal modelling: a case in the food industry

Abstract

An increasing number of concurrent standards and regulations is being imposed on organizations operating in various domains. From healthcare to automotive to food, demands from national legislation, directives of each target market, and edicts from specific clients are creating a patchwork of requirements for compliance and audit. Managing these disconnected frameworks involves considerable overhead, duplications, and conflicts. But integrating and harmonizing these requirements needs the collaboration of varied stakeholders, with different trainings and backgrounds, capable of translating the impacts of the various norms in the different sectors of the organization. We propose a participative goal-oriented approach, consisting of four steps, to assist in this process. It brings together the requirements from the various regulations, the organizational goals, and measurement indicators. We describe its use in a company operating in the food industry, one of the most regulated in the world, where audits are very frequent, to integrate ISO 22000, IFS Food, and BRC Global Standards. Our findings show that an effective integration of the multiple regulations was possible, and that the resulting goal diagrams are an effective tool for communicating with various stakeholders, such as employees, clients, auditors, consultants and representatives of industry initiatives.