‘Organisational Knowledge’ is closely linked with ‘documented information’. You should take steps to identify the internal and external knowledge necessary to ensure your continued product’s or service’s conformity.
You should confirm how your organisation has determined and made available the knowledge needed to keep up-to-date with changing situations and knowledge related to new products and services. You need to determine whether your organisation has considered internal and external sources, such as:
- Lessons learned from non-conformities and corrective actions, near miss situations and successes;
- Gathering knowledge from customers, suppliers and partners;
- Capturing knowledge that exists within the organisation, through mentoring or succession planning;
- Benchmarking against competitors;
- Sharing organisational knowledge with interested parties to ensure sustainability of the organisation;
- Updating the necessary organisational knowledge based on the results of improvement;
- Knowledge from conferences, attending trade fairs, networking seminars, or other external events.
Sources of internal knowledge
There is a strong link between organisational knowledge and the competence of employees, the latter being peoples’ ability to apply knowledge to their work.
Organisational knowledge can be defined as information combined with experience, context, interpretation, and insights that are useful when making decisions and taking action specific to your management system. Examples of organisational knowledge include:
- Documented information regarding a process, product or service;
- Previous specifications and work instructions;
- The experience of skilled people operating their processes;
- Mentoring and coaching by more experienced employees;
- Knowledge of technologies and infrastructure relevant to your organisation, etc.
Sources of internal knowledge also include your business’ intellectual property; knowledge gained from experience and coaching; lessons learnt from failures and successes; capturing and sharing undocumented knowledge and experience; and the results of improvements in processes, products and services.
Organisational knowledge should be maintained and available to the extent necessary. When addressing changing needs and trends, your organisation should consider its current knowledge and determine how to acquire or access any necessary additional knowledge and required updates.
The knowledge necessary for the operation of processes and to achieve products and/or service conformity are evident through the following types of document:
- Contract review requirements;
- Demonstrate the operation of processes;
- Records of monitoring and measuring resources;
- Competence records of personnel, training records, cross training, training feedback;
- Operational planning and control process documents and records;
- Supplier evaluation records;
- Change control records;
- Product non-conformity records;
- Corrective action records;
- Identification and traceability records;
- Records of the release of products/services;
- Internal audit programmes and reports;
- Management review minutes.
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