Knowledge of the organization in ISO 9001 - What does the standard say?

What does ISO 9001:2026 require regarding organizational knowledge?

ISO 9001:2026 treats organizational knowledge as part of the resources of the quality management system. Clause 7.1 requires the organization to determine and provide the resources needed for the establishment, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of the quality management system. In doing so, it must consider the capabilities of, and constraints on, its existing internal resources, and what it needs to obtain from external providers. In this view of resources, organizational knowledge sits alongside people, infrastructure, the environment for the operation of processes, and monitoring and measuring resources.

In clause 7.1.6, “organizational knowledge” is therefore a resource that must be determined and provided just like all others. The informative Annex A points out that the interactions between resources and processes can also play a role here.

However, the standard does not include comprehensive concepts from knowledge management. Instead, it sets out a fairly general requirement: not to lose sight of the topic and to address the associated risks and opportunities.

What does clause 7.1.6 require?

Clause 7.1.6 contains three requirements for organizational knowledge. The organization must:

• Determine knowledge: determine the knowledge necessary for the operation of its processes and to achieve the intended results of its quality management system.
• Retain, apply and share knowledge: retain this knowledge, apply it and share it to the extent necessary.
• Respond to change: when addressing changing needs and trends, the organization must consider its current knowledge. It must also determine how to acquire or access any necessary additional knowledge and required updates.

ISO 9001 deliberately leaves open how comprehensively, and at what level, the organization implements this. The standard requires knowledge to be determined and kept usable, but it does not prescribe specific methods or tools.

What changes in clause 7.1.6?

The revision of ISO 9001 brings noticeable changes to clause 7.1.6. Knowledge is no longer just to be held available, but applied and shared. The table compares ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 9001:2026.

What do the changes in clause 7.1.6 mean?

Purpose: results of the quality management system instead of conformity
Knowledge is now aligned with the system as a whole. It is no longer only a resource for the conformity of products and services, but for the intended results of the quality management system.

Core requirement: using and sharing knowledge instead of just holding it
Holding knowledge is no longer enough. Maintaining it and making it available referred to the stock of knowledge. Now, knowledge must also be applied and shared to the extent necessary.

Notes: forms of knowledge instead of sources
The focus shifts from where knowledge comes from to what form it takes. The explicit mention of digital systems is new. The description of knowledge found in the former Note 1 has been dropped. Informative Annex A.7.1.6 describes organizational knowledge as dynamic and lists activities for handling it, from acquisition to retention.

What stays the same?

The basic framework of clause 7.1.6 is unchanged: the organization determines the knowledge it needs and responds to change. In detail:

• Determining knowledge: The organization must still determine the knowledge necessary for the operation of its processes.
• Extent necessary: The requirement still applies “to the extent necessary”.
• Responding to change: The paragraph on addressing changing needs and trends is unchanged in content.
• No documented information: Clause 7.1.6 does not require documented information in either version.

What has changed is how the knowledge itself is handled.

Organizational knowledge in everyday business

Challenges and tasks

ISO 9001:2026 also formulates the requirements for organization-specific knowledge in fairly general and brief terms. The standard prescribes neither a method nor a tool, and informative Annex A.7.1.6 adds no requirements. This way, users of the standard are not overburdened with detail. It also leaves enough room for meeting the requirements, for example regarding completeness and the level of implementation.

Even without delving too deeply into what ISO 9001 means by “organizational knowledge”, a whole range of challenges can be associated with it:

• Resignation of frustrated employees
• Age-related departure of highly motivated employees
• Unintentional deletion of development results
• Technological progress
• Digital work
• …

Most of the tasks facing top management, department heads and quality managers have something to do with knowledge. Knowledge that…

• you have,
• you know you don’t have,
• you don’t know you have,
• you don’t know you don’t have,
• is about to retire.

Implicit vs. explicit organizational knowledge

The note to clause 7.1.6 lists different forms in which knowledge exists. The distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge is helpful here. Implicit knowledge lies in people’s experience and is difficult to put into words. Explicit knowledge, by contrast, exists for example in documented information or in digital systems and can be shared directly. The standard does not use these two terms, but they help to classify the forms listed in the note.

When it comes to managing generational change and the associated knowledge transfer within the company, the two forms of knowledge bring their own, sometimes quite different, requirements. Thirty years of experience in handling customer complaints can hardly be put into words and passed on, so long-term, planned approaches are needed. If, on the other hand, the task is to make the right machine settings, good documentation and employee training may be enough.

Strategies for retaining and updating knowledge

ISO 9001 does not prescribe how the organization retains and updates its knowledge. Each organization decides for itself which knowledge it wants to retain and by what means. Existing tools are often sufficient. Reviving the outdated wiki system is rarely the best solution. Even simple procedural instructions can keep younger colleagues from repeating the mistakes of older ones.

The note to clause 7.1.6 refers here to knowledge embedded in methods, processes and products. A management system can therefore help secure implicit and explicit knowledge and update it later. Documenting 30 years of experience well will hardly be possible. But improving the process for handling customer complaints is straightforward.

Innovation through knowledge transfer

When younger and older colleagues tackle something together, different perspectives, experiences and ideas come together: more explicit, scientifically grounded knowledge on the one hand, more implicit, context-specific knowledge on the other. Besides more accurate process descriptions and better procedures, this produces new approaches and ideas, and with them the prerequisite for innovation.

In this context, the quality management system according to ISO 9001 is primarily responsible for creating the organizational prerequisites and setting initial impulses. Knowledge areas must be determined, resources provided, and priorities set.

The decisive factor is the ability to meet customer requirements and statutory and regulatory requirements. The knowledge needed for this should always take priority.

Digitalization makes knowledge easier to use

Particularly ambitious attempts to use the existing knowledge in an organization often fail because of simple problems. Generously stocked libraries go unused and the wiki is abandoned. Successful measures always take into account people’s preference for old habits and constant deadline pressure. Digitalization offers an opportunity to make knowledge easier to access, not in separate IT systems, but in the tools people use in their everyday work.

Companies that use AI as a knowledge carrier should consider how they will secure the AI’s implicit knowledge and continue to use it when the next update is due.

One aspect that the ISO 9001 revision also addresses is the consideration of new technologies. The note to clause 7.1.6 explicitly names digital systems as a form in which knowledge exists. The note to clause 6.1.3 lists the adoption of new technologies as an example of actions to address opportunities.

Risks and opportunities

The same applies to people as knowledge carriers. Companies already consider the associated risks and opportunities in workforce planning, recruitment and workplace design. Critical functions are staffed twice, with slightly different areas of responsibility.

Workplaces are designed so that new employees are involved from the start when cross-functional tasks are concerned. Rotating task assignments, internal training and appropriately documented ways of working do the rest. Such details hold many risks and many obvious opportunities to make use of organizational knowledge.

Understanding the requirements of clause 7.1.6 as a call to action means identifying these and other risks and opportunities, and finding simple, smart solutions wherever knowledge is an issue. It also means using knowledge in all these places for the wide-ranging tasks of quality management.

Organizational knowledge in ISO 9001: Conclusion

For a long time, the quality management standard ISO 9001 did not address “organizational knowledge”. It was only included in the standard as a resource with the 2015 revision. ISO 9001:2026 sharpens the requirement in clause 7.1.6: knowledge must be retained, applied and shared to the extent necessary. The requirements themselves remain generally worded.

Users of the standard are therefore called upon to develop their own ideas about which knowledge is needed where in the company, today and tomorrow, to reliably achieve the objectives set.

Key considerations should include:

• How can the necessary knowledge be retained, applied and shared within the company?
• How can new expertise be gained?
• Which knowledge is critical for the future?
• What impact does demographic change have on the company?
• What impact do topics such as innovation and digitalization have?

Ultimately, with a view to “risks and opportunities in ISO 9001”, it is worthwhile to factor organizational knowledge into workforce planning, for example, and to take it fully into account when making decisions.

DQS. The Audit Company.

DQS (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Zertifizierung von Managementsystemen) was founded in 1985 by DGQ (German Society for Quality) and DIN (German Institute for Standardization) as Germany’s first management system certification body.

As the only major certification body focused on management systems and processes, we have played a pioneering role for many years. In 1986, DQS issued Germany’s first certificate to ISO 9001, the world’s most important management system standard. Since then, the history of DQS has been closely linked to the history of ISO 9001.

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