Using knowledge as a resource and setting the knowledge of the organization in a knowledge base and allowing access to the relevant parties—this is the main message of clause 7.1.6—Knowledge. The ISO standard (finally) gives the much deserved importance to knowledge. In the eyes of quality management, knowledge promotes the main goal: to improve processes by predicting, preventing, and avoiding nonconformities and maintaining customer satisfaction through the use of knowledge. This is a new concept of the ISO 9001 Standard; until now, you were required “only” to determine which resources are necessary for maintaining the QMS effectively.
Identifying and Defining the Necessary Knowledge
But let us start from the beginning—in order to manage knowledge in the organization, you must first identify which knowledge or types of knowledge are required for the operation of the process and business activities. The standard is pretty much clear to which type of knowledge you shall refer to as necessary:
- Knowledge for the operation of its processes
- Knowledge for obtaining and assuring conformity of products
As a rule of thumb, the necessary knowledge should assist individuals in turning process inputs into expected outputs; whether it is a subprocess, an internal service that one department provides, or the end product delivered to the customer. This kind of knowledge can include work methods, instructions or trainings or experience—all the applications that a worker uses to operate an activity.
Practically identifying the necessary knowledge will be done through mapping,
categorizing, indexing, and evaluating organizational knowledge assets. I suggest the following approach—while determining the processes needed for the QMS and their application (clause 4.4.1), you may include a reference to specific required knowledge per process or activity.
Maintaining Knowledge
The organization must demonstrate its ability to maintain knowledge and apply the necessary activities (normally with technology but not necessarily). We maintainthe knowledge because we want to create an environment that shares knowledge with the relevant parties. For this, we must preserve the knowledge and be able to offer it inan appropriate manner to interested parties. Each area in the organization uses different kinds of knowledge that appears on different types of media and is distributed using different methods. The process and activities characterize the way knowledge is maintained. How do we maintain knowledge? Maintaining knowledge is establishing a set of activities that bring the knowledge to an existing state. In other words, maintaining knowledge is the ability to
- Capture the knowledge
- Describe the knowledge (metadata)
- Categorize the knowledge
- Store, retrieve, and archive the knowledge
- Process the knowledge
- Distribute the knowledge
- Update the knowledge
System for Maintaining Knowledge
The ISO 9001 refers to knowledge that is necessary for the operation of processes and elements that make up the QMS. A system consists of many elements that maintain interactions between each other and perform various activities. Each of the activities requires inputs and generates outputs. Each element has its objectives, but they all have some mutual goal, and each activity requires a certain degree of knowledge for its operation. In today’s environment, business processes are becoming more complex and dynamic. Daily activities require a high level of skills and expertise. What was done manually 10 years ago is being replaced and automated by systems that require knowledge for their operation. In the (not-so-far) past operations, we were relying on data and information management in order to achieve goals. But today it is not enough and employees are required to obtain knowledge in order to operate a higher level of activities. And there is another challenge; the amount of knowledge available on any subject today is increasing to a level that requires a systematic management. Lack of such a system for maintaining knowledge will cause the loss of knowledge in the organization. This is why a new set of management is required in the organization—knowledge management. Another aspect is the technology; the current technological and economic changes affect the factors that influence the QMS. Areas and functions in an organization are becoming more borderless. These changes bring a new factor into the equation—knowledge.
This webpage contains only a fragment of the chapter 7.1 Resources from the book: ISO 9001: 2015 – A Complete Guide to Quality Management Systems published by:
Why choose the book ISO 9001: 2015?
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