Managing Compliance Across Multiple Frameworks in Manufacturing

Manufacturers today deal with multiple regulatory, security and industry-specific standards. Without a structured approach to efficiently and effectively meet all requirements, managing compliance becomes a heavy burden.

This guide shows how manufacturers can streamline compliance across multiple frameworks to eliminate duplicate tasks and improve compliance effectiveness while strengthening overall regulatory compliance practices. 

Common Challenges in Managing Compliance Across Frameworks

Managing compliance for just one framework is already demanding. When you add multiple standards into the mix, the complexity increases quickly. Here are some of the most common challenges manufacturers face when complying with multiple standards. 

Multiple Requirements

Each compliance framework comes with its own unique set of requirements. Even those with the same goals aren’t identical. Numerous requirements can be overwhelming without the right tools and management strategies, particularly when aligning evolving regulatory requirements across jurisdictions. 

Duplicate Controls and Efforts

While each compliance framework has its own standards, those that share common goals often have overlapping requirements. Unless you carefully identify these overlaps and map them to the same internal controls and internal policies, you risk duplicating compliance efforts.

Constant Regulatory Changes

According to a Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence survey, industries worldwide see an average of 234 regulatory alerts every day. The more frameworks your organization must comply with, the more updates you need to track and keep up with in the modern regulatory environment, increasing overall compliance risk exposure. 

Audit Fatigue

In multi-framework compliance, teams often find themselves preparing for and undergoing audits across numerous standards. Each framework has its own documentation, evidence and review requirements. This can quickly become mentally and operationally exhausting, especially without tools that help automate and streamline audit preparation.

Employee Training Gaps

Compliance education in the workplace is usually framework-specific. If you don’t train employees on all applicable standards, they may lack the key knowledge needed to ensure multi-framework compliance. For example, production staff may receive occupational safety training but have limited awareness of data protection policies relevant to their role, reinforcing the need for structured risk assessments tied to job functions. 

How to Align Multiple Compliance Frameworks and Manage Them More Effectively

As manufacturers face more requirements across frameworks, handling each standard separately quickly becomes inefficient. Instead, they should identify where compliance requirements overlap and treat them as a single set in a centralized platform. Here’s how to align multiple compliance frameworks step by step. 

1. Identify All Frameworks That Apply to Your Company

Determine what regulations and standards your organization is subject to: 

• Check which regulations apply to your specific manufacturing sector.
• Look up the general laws and standards in the regions where you manufacture or sell products.
• Factor in compliance requirements tied to your processes and systems.
• Account for security or business continuity standards that your clients expect you to meet, often validated through formal risk assessments.

Common regulatory standards and security frameworks that a manufacturer may have to comply with simultaneously include: 

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements regarding workplace safety in the United States
• ISO’s food safety, quality management and IT security standards, which are known and accepted globally
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) that provides best practices for managing cybersecurity risks
• Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program for contractors manufacturing products for the U.S. Department of Defense
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), which applies to any business that accepts, handles, stores or transmits cardholder data

2. Map Overlapping Compliance Requirements to the Same Internal Controls

After identifying all applicable standards and regulations, look for any common compliance requirements across the frameworks. Once you determine the overlap, map those shared requirements to the same internal policies or controls. 

By addressing multiple frameworks simultaneously, you reduce redundancy and improve consistency. For example, both NIST CSF and PCI DSS require periodic access reviews. Instead of creating a separate procedure for each framework, you can have a single access review process that meets the requirements of both and supports broader risk management goals.

In short, if a particular control applies to two or more frameworks, implement and track it just once rather than duplicating efforts. This concept is called cross-mapping. However, doing it manually in spreadsheets becomes inefficient when dealing with numerous controls. Instead, consider automating the process using compliance management software and incorporating standardized risk assessments. 

3. Manage Compliance in One Place

Keep your compliance policies, documentation and evidence in one centralized system. When different teams use separate tools, such as IT managing cybersecurity standards in one place and Legal handling data privacy regulations in another, it creates unnecessary complexity. 

A governance, risk and compliance (GRC) platform such as Onspring acts as a single source of truth for departments managing interconnected compliance tasks. It brings internal controls and audit evidence under one roof, making them readily accessible during collaboration and audits, while strengthening your overall compliance program and supporting enterprise-wide risk management alignment. 

4. Monitor Controls Continuously

Waiting until a periodic audit reveals compliance gaps puts you in a reactive position. Effective multi-framework compliance requires identifying and fixing ineffective controls in real time before they become material issues. Continuous monitoring helps you achieve this. 

A modern GRC platform can allow you to automatically test your controls and track their performance in real time. That means you find compliance issues early and resolve them quickly, improving ongoing regulatory compliance outcomes and reinforcing consistent data protection practices.

Benefits of Aligning Multiple Compliance Frameworks

Mapping common controls across frameworks eliminates duplicate effort and streamlines compliance processes. Here’s how aligning standards with similar requirements benefits manufacturers. 

Improves Audit Readiness

Because the same controls, documentation and evidence are already organized and mapped across frameworks, you don’t have to gather everything separately for each audit. For standards with similar requirements, you can reuse cross-mapped compliance data to prepare for audits. 

Makes It Easy to Adapt to Regulatory Changes

Part of aligning multiple compliance frameworks is proactively monitoring controls. So when framework standards change over time, you can quickly identify what internal procedures and policies you need to update to meet new regulatory requirements. 

Enhances Risk Mitigation

Aligning all your compliance standards in one central platform provides a clear, complete view of your compliance risks. The improved visibility helps you address issues earlier, reducing the chances of noncompliance and strengthening responses to compliance risk. 

With overlapping requirements mapped and managed together, it’s easy to spot weak or inconsistent controls. You then use that insight to strengthen your multi-framework compliance program. 

Best Practices for Managing Multiple Compliance Standards in Manufacturing

With the right guidelines, manufacturers can make multi-framework compliance more manageable. Best practices include: 

• Track changes in framework requirements and update controls over time to ensure continuous compliance and keep audit trails current.
• Integrate compliance standards into your risk management methodology. Prioritize controls based on the potential impact of compliance risk, not just regulatory pressure. 
• Make sure your suppliers are compliant. Extend your compliance program to direct suppliers and Nth parties. 
• For each role, offer employees compliance training that covers all relevant legal requirements. Regularly update the training content to match framework updates and incorporate findings from ongoing risk assessments. 

How a Modern GRC Tool Helps Manufacturers Achieve Multi-Framework Compliance

Onspring provides a central platform to manage all your frameworks, so your compliance teams don’t have to use spreadsheets or separate systems. It also helps you: 

• Map regulations to common controls once and reuse them across compliance standards, including CMMC, ISO and NIST.
• Collect compliance evidence automatically for easy audit preparation. 
• Monitor controls and track compliance in real time. 

Download our Manufacturing Data Sheet to see how Onspring makes multi-framework compliance more manageable.