Organizational Knowledge Requirements - Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6

[Pancho]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

There is no simplistic, one-size-fits-all answer to this. The knowledge acquired from a business blunder might get hard coded in a Verification & Validation protocol; for example, if I am a global organization which just spent billions of dollars in a product recall of products having their batteries exploding and being banned from all commercial flights, worldwide, I will make sure that, as I am validating new products which also contain batteries, the lessons learned (organizational knowledge) from the previous fiasco never get repeated, by instituting a much more thorough V&V process, defined in a NPI (New Product Introduction) Manual.

If I am an organization that got stiffed by a customer for lack of payment, which almost took me out of business, I will institute a process in my customer acquisition process that requires a credit check of that potential customer, before I engage in any project that requires significant expenditures. That "knowledge" is captured in a process and associated accompanying procedure titled "Customer acquisition and engagement"

Organizational knowledge, just like corrective action, is designed to make organizations, more effective, efficient and, as importantly, avoid repeat mistakes. Failure to learn from mistakes is just another trait of dysfunctional organizations.

Agree, Sidney. In other words, knowledge must ultimately be captured into the management system in order to be useful. Corrective action is one way of capturing such knowledge.

Dumping papers into a server, or having a lessons-learned meeting, or even training, by themselves, are not acquiring permanent knowledge for the organization. Those activities may indeed be steps in the acquisition of knowledge. But the knowledge gels only when it is part of a process description. It does not need to be written down. It can be "tacit" knowledge. Such mode of knowledge is fragile at best. Knowledge really becomes useful only when transformed into explicit knowledge in the form of management system documents.

As the paper that Brad shared earlier in this thread lays out, there is a knowledge creation loop that is, IMO, the PDCA cycle but viewed from a different angle.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

Dumping papers into a server, or having a lessons-learned meeting, or even training, by themselves, are not acquiring permanent knowledge for the organization. Those activities may indeed be steps in the acquisition of knowledge. But the knowledge gels only when it is part of a process description.

If the (organizational) knowledge is not hard-coded somehow in the business processes, the organization is destined to repeat or incur in the same mistake.

Dumping papers into a server aiming at knowledge preservation seems as effective as dancing for rain in the desert.

 

[somashekar]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

If the (organizational) knowledge is not hard-coded somehow in the business processes, the organization is destined to repeat or incur in the same mistake.

Dumping papers into a server aiming at knowledge preservation seems as effective as dancing for rain in the desert.

All these simply goes to say that .... Knowledge is not power., Use of knowledge is power...

 

[Big Jim]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

If the (organizational) knowledge is not hard-coded somehow in the business processes, the organization is destined to repeat or incur in the same mistake.

Dumping papers into a server aiming at knowledge preservation seems as effective as dancing for rain in the desert.

As they say, those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It is also said that it is less painful to learn from the experience of others.

 

[Big Jim]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

I believe most successful companies do these things, just that they might not have established the "documented information" required to provide objective evidence yet.

You might want to read that part of the standard again. Documented information requirements are not attached to this requirement. Thank whatever divinity you believe in that there isn't.

 

[sadamson]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

I think training and recruitment practices are covered elsewhere in the standard. This clause is asking for something else.

 

[Big Jim]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

Yes, that is covered in the competency portion, but make no mistake, they are closely related, or you might say they overlap. Competency is most certainly one of the ways that knowledge is met.

 

[Kronos147]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

Dumping papers into a server aiming at knowledge preservation seems as effective as dancing for rain in the desert.

This is true. There must be an additional process as well. Data must be transformed into information.

However, if I was a big wig CEO looking to acquire a company, I would prefer the one with the data there than the one where there is no data.

Small example of my approach:
The Production Manager told me yesterday a nonconforming product discovered in final inspection was due to a lack of formalized training in production. The plan was to go out and 'show' everyone how it is done.

I suggested taking pictures and making a training aid, so we could make the training process repeatable, and then adding a reference to the training aid to the traveler.


Bottom line - the goal of the system is effectively recognizing all requirements and achieving customer satisfaction, while continually improving the processes. Right?

 

[Kronos147]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

You might want to read that part of the standard again. Documented information requirements are not attached to this requirement.

I meant to quote you in my last post. Doh!

Documented Information is our internal requirement to make sure we retain the organizational knowledge. I have encountered too much "tribal knowledge" and, IMO, the newer employees don't come in as qualified as they used to.

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

Re: Meeting ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge Requirements

In addition to the great advice already present in this thread, it is a good idea to have a look at Annex A7, which clearly states the purpose of clause 7.1.6: The intent is to safeguard the organization from loss of knowledge and encourage it to acquire knowledge.

Both of the above are are things we obviously need to do, requirement or not.