www.generationnext.

in

Understanding ISO 9001:2015

Clause 7.1.6 - Organizational Knowledge
7.1.6 Organizational knowledge (OK)
OK has been recognized as a vital business asset. It is specific to
each organization and can be used as a powerful tool to gain
competitive advantage. Many organizations now identify, capture,
internalize and leverage relevant OK as an important business
strategy. The many ways OK can be used to add value to an
organization include:
Improving products, services and QMS processes.
Improving employee training and performance.
Reducing business and QMS risks.
Making more informed decisions about courses of action.
Anticipating, understanding and adapting to trends and changes
in its business environment.
Exploiting existing and acquired knowledge assets.
Developing new opportunities.
Leveraging OK to gain competitive advantage.
Promoting a learning environment to further stimulate creation of
new knowledge.
Your organization must determine and manage the OK necessary
for the operation of QMS processes and to achieve conformity of
product and services.
Requirements regarding OK were introduced for the purpose of:
Safeguarding the organizational knowledge from loss of
knowledge, e.g.
Through staff turnover;
Failure to capture and share information;
Loss or theft by personnel or outsiders.
Encouraging the organization to acquire knowledge, e.g.
Learning from experience;
Mentoring;
Benchmarking;
India: C 905 Krishna Appra Saphire, Vaibhav Khand, Indirapuram. Ghaziabad. UP. India
1 .No. 16, First Floor, 70 HK Bld, Y M Road, Masjid Bunder, West Mumbai, India
UAE: Spark International FZE, PO Box 16111, RAK FTZ, RAK-UAE.
Algeria: No: 2 Etage Batimet Billayat, Cite Eyalarsa, SETIF, ALGERIA.
 www.generationnext.in

Building relationships with relevant interested parties.

OK is generally of two types;
Explicit knowledge that which can be written down,
transferred, and shared. It is definable and can be protected by
the legal system;
Tacit knowledge is know-how that is usually hard to describe.
It can be demonstrated but difficult to document as it resides in
the minds of employees. It become evident through performance
and on-the-job training.
What is organizational knowledge (OK)?
It can be defined as information combined with experience, context,
interpretation, and insight that is useful in making decisions and
taking action specific to your organization and QMS. Such
information includes:
Specific technical and procedural information required to
produce conforming products and services and for controlling
QMS processes needed to produce them. These may include
product and service specifications, drawings, process flow
diagrams, product and process steps, criteria, work instructions,
or verbal instructions, etc.

Novel, unique, highly creative and innovative ways of doing

things that are formally encoded in business processes,
practices, methods, etc.
Lessons learned from past failures, near miss situations and
successes,
Capturing undocumented knowledge (explicit and tacit) and
experience that resides within the minds of employees and
employee groups,
Developed or acquired knowledge - patents, practices,
technologies, research & development,
The results of research and improvement projects for products,
services, processes and business practices,
Knowledge of markets, competitors, customers, suppliersand
interested parties, e tc,
Knowledge acquired through consultants, conferences,
universities, research institutes, etc, on best practices or to
resolve specific business and QMS problems,
India: C 905 Krishna Appra Saphire, Vaibhav Khand, Indirapuram. Ghaziabad. UP. India
2 .No. 16, First Floor, 70 HK Bld, Y M Road, Masjid Bunder, West Mumbai, India
UAE: Spark International FZE, PO Box 16111, RAK FTZ, RAK-UAE.
Algeria: No: 2 Etage Batimet Billayat, Cite Eyalarsa, SETIF, ALGERIA.
www.generationnext.in

India: C 905 Krishna Appra Saphire, Vaibhav Khand, Indirapuram. Ghaziabad. UP. India
3 .No. 16, First Floor, 70 HK Bld, Y M Road, Masjid Bunder, West Mumbai, India
UAE: Spark International FZE, PO Box 16111, RAK FTZ, RAK-UAE.
Algeria: No: 2 Etage Batimet Billayat, Cite Eyalarsa, SETIF, ALGERIA.