The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1754-2731.htm TQM 26,1 Theory and practice of knowledge managed ISO 9001:2000 supported quality system 30 Received 15 November 2011 Revised 30 April 2012 14 September 2012 Accepted 14 January 2013 V Mohan Sivakumar Mechanical Engineering Department, PSG Polytechnic College, Coimbatore, India S.R Devadasan Production Engineering Department, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India, and R Murugesh Darshan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rajkot, India Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to initiate researches in the direction of integrating knowledge management (KM) principles with ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System and motivate the practitioners to implement such integrated system in real-time practice Design/methodology/approach – The principles of KM were integrated with the five major clauses of ISO 9001:2000 standard After designing this integrated system, it was subjected to peripheral implementation study in a government-managed company situated in India The knowledge portal required for maintaining this integrated system was also developed Findings – ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 9001:2000 standards rest on the same process-based quality system model which is comprised of five major clauses Hence, the integrated system proposed in this paper can be utilized by the contemporary organizations to infuse KM principles in ISO 9001:2008 based quality system Research limitations/implications – Though the integrated system designed in this research could not be implemented in a full-fledged manner, the experiences gained have been useful to indicate the future direction of research and practice for integrating KM principles with ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System Practical implications – A roadmap has been evolved to guide the practitioners to implement Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System Originality value – No researcher or practitioner has so far contributed a model integrating the process-based quality system incorporated in ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9001:2008 standards with KM principles As this gap is filled in this paper, the contributions of this paper are valuable to both researchers and practitioners Keywords Knowledge management, Information technology, ISO 9001, Knowledge portal, Quality system Paper type Research paper The TQM Journal Vol 26 No 1, 2014 pp 30-49 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1754-2731 DOI 10.1108/TQM-10-2011-0063 Introduction After Japanese products invaded the global market, the world community began to adopt quality as a weapon for facing competition (Senthilkumar and Arulraj, 2011) This marked the beginning of quality era The world entered into quality era from 1970s During quality era, a number of tools, techniques and approaches for achieving high degree of quality in products and services emerged (Tari, 2005) This progression culminated in the emergence of “Total Quality Management” (TQM) field One of the impacts of the emergence of TQM is the abundant ISO 9000 certifications in organizational arena Although the ISO 9000 certifications are skill unabated, the knowledge era has started to overshadow on them during the last two decades (Call, 2005; Galliers and Newell, 2003) Knowledge had been considered as a treasure by humans from ancient days However, knowledge alone cannot act as a powerful mechanism to faster the development of human race Rather the human race is required to manage knowledge by utilizing the competitive strategies (Lin and Wu, 2005; Chen et al., 2007) In other words, the principles of knowledge management (KM) shall have to be integrated with appropriate competitive strategies for achieving competitiveness and core competencies In this context, the integration of KM with ISO 9000 certification practice is recognized as a synergic proposition The need of integrating KM with ISO 9000 certification practice has been emphasized in literature scantly (Heng, 2001; Hellstrom and Husted, 2004; Lin and Wu, 2005; Abdullah and Ahmad, 2009) In spite of abundant literature on KM and ISO 9000 certification, only these four papers have mentioned the need of integrating KM with ISO 9000 series quality system standards These papers also not deal with the detailed methodology of infusing KM with an appropriate ISO 9000 series standard In order to fill this gap, this paper reports a research in which KM principles were amended with the five clauses of ISO 9001:2000 quality system standard The titles of these five major clauses are “quality system,” “management responsibility,” “recourse management,” “product realization” and “measurement analysis and improvement.” As these titles imply, ISO 9001:2000 standard facilitates the formation of a quality system which is to be supported by the management This quality system should aid product realization by applying appropriate resources Finally, the installation of this quality system should result in the continual quality improvement of the products, processes and overall performance of the organization These processes are encapsulated in ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9001:2008 standards under the model called “process-based quality management system.” This model is based on Deming’s Plan Do Check Act phases (Magd, 2006) During the research being reported here, KM principles were infused in this model to design Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System After examining its working in a company, a portion of the portal of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System model was developed The details of this work are presented in the following parts of this paper Research methodology The research being reported in this paper was carried out by following the methodology shown in Figure As shown, the research was started by studying the features of ISO 9001:2000 standard Followed by that, features of KM were studied During these two phases of study, the literature was reviewed and the components of KM were identified Then, the feasibility of infusing those components in ISO 9001:2000 standard was explored By referring to this explorative study, Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System was designed by amending KM’s core principles with ISO 9001:2000 standard After that, the implementation of this model was studied in an Indian public sector company Portal development is a hallmark of any KM project (Corbin et al., 2007; Devedzic, 2005) Hence, in this research also the portal of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System was developed In fact, rather than the implementation study, portal development formed a core activity of this research The experiences of pursuing this research were utilized to evolve a roadmap for implementing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System Knowledge Managed ISO 31 TQM 26,1 Study of ISO 9001:2000 standard Study of features of Knowledge Management 32 Design of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System Implementation study of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System Portal development Figure Research methodology Evolution of roadmap Literature survey After it was decided to examine the implication of integrating KM principles with ISO 9001 Supported Quality System, the literature was searched from two perspectives From one perspective, the growth and characteristics of ISO 9000 series standards were reviewed From the second perspective, the growth pattern of KM field was studied After completing the literature survey to this extent, the progression of ISO 9000 research toward KM and vice versa was examined 3.1 Growth of ISO 9000 research An overview of certain articles dealing with ISO 9000 series quality system standards indicated that, till early 1980s, researchers appreciated the ISO 9000 certification process From the middle part of 1980s, the researchers began to point out the weaknesses of ISO 9000 Supported Quality Systems (Haversjo, 2000; Douglas et al., 2003; Franceschini et al., 2011) When these kinds of articles were increasing till the end of the year 2000, ISO revised these standards and brought out the latest versions Accordingly, a modern company desirous of obtaining ISO 9000 certification needs to follow the requirements of ISO 9001:2008 standard The researchers who studied the requirements of 2000 and 2008 versions of ISO 9000 series standards have been appreciative of their structure (Boulter and Bendell, 2002; Gotzamani and Tsiotras, 2002; Douglas et al., 2003; Quazi and Jacobs, 2004; Vouzas and Gotzamani, 2005; Magd, 2006) Hence, it appears that any research attempting to exploit the power of quality system will evolve good results if it is integrated with the latest version of ISO 9000 series-based quality systems 3.2 Growth pattern of KM field As mentioned earlier, the world community has been adopting quality as a strategy to face competition (Mehra and Agrawal, 2003) However, during the recent years, there has been a realization that, besides quality, the knowledge building through creativity and innovation is a necessity to face the competition As a result of this realization, the field of KM formally evolved from 1990 (Peng et al., 2007) The application of intelligence in information results in knowledge (Herschel and Jones, 2005; Border, 2006) The historical review of KM can be seen in Metaxiotis et al (2005) and Lambe (2011) Quiet interestingly they have pointed out that KM emerged from the approaches like TQM, business process reengineering (BPR) and information systems Inline to the fact that, KM itself originated from TQM (Metaxiotis et al 2005), some researchers have started to work in the direction of applying KM for achieving high degree of quality For example Choo et al (2007), have demonstrated the method of applying KM in quality programs such as TQM, ISO 9000 and Six sigma Another paper by Jones et al (2003) has indicated the use of the term knowledge champions in KM arena The terminology “champion” is familiar in “six sigma” field (Swink and Jacobs, 2012) This fact leads to an inference that KM field witnesses the shadowing of quality programs Particularly this has led to the development of identifying the “chief knowledge officer” (CKO) in KM field (Dove, 1999; Lin et al., 2007) This development indicates that KM researchers are adopting the features of quality programs However, it is surprising to note that KM research community has not attempted to link the researches with ISO 9000 certification which is a dominant phenomenon in the quality improvement programs of modern organizations 3.3 Progression of ISO 9000 research toward KM and vice versa Presumably on realizing the power of KM principles and ISO 9001:2000 standard, very few researchers have started to work in the direction of integrating them It appears that, Heng (2001) is the first article that has emphasized the need of exploiting ISO 9001:2000 standard for evolving critical knowledge in an organization He has tabulated 20 elements of ISO 9001:1994 standard and pointed out the critical knowledge and intellectual capital that arise from them Although there has been no sign of any further research pursued in this direction, Hellstrom and Husted (2004) have referred the arguments of Heng (2001) while reviewing the literature These two articles have not indicated the systematic conversion of data into information and then information into knowledge (Galliers and Newell, 2003; Tiwana, 2005) However, this kind of emphasis is peripherally seen in Lin and Wu (2005) These authors have used quality information system and enterprise resource planning as the pathways for integrating KM with ISO 9001:2000 standard Although Lin and Wu (2005) have reported advanced research on Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000, its development has not been complete with the KM process and knowledge portal Hence a research involving the advancement of ISO 9001:2000 standard by applying KM process and developing a knowledge portal has become a need of the hour 3.4 Inference from the literature survey On the whole, the literature survey reported in this section indicated that the researchers have just started to realize the importance of developing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 based Quality Systems Though the fundamental work has been carried out in this direction by Lin and Wu (2005), it appears that no researcher has worked in the direction of amending the KM principles with either ISO 9001:2000 standard or ISO 9001:2008 and developing its portal Knowledge managed quality system ISO 9001:2000 standard consists of eight clauses (Tan et al., 2003; Tzelepis et al., 2006; Magd, 2006) The first three clauses are primitives and the remaining five clauses are Knowledge Managed ISO 33 TQM 26,1 34 the building blocks of the quality system (McAdam and Fulton, 2002) The working of this quality system model specified in ISO 9001:2000 standard is depicted using the pictorial model called process-based quality management system This model clearly pinpoints the continual improvement process As mentioned earlier, even the latest released ISO 9001:2008 standard rests on this process-based quality management system model Hence KM principles were amended with the five main clauses of ISO 9001:2000 standard This exercise is illustrated in this section As sample, the contents of Section 4.1 of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System are presented in Table I As shown in Table I, in the introductory paragraph, the title KM has been amended Further in the sub-clause “a,” the stipulations of KM principles are stipulated for adoption The contents of sections from “b” to “f” have not been amended as these stipulations are equally applicable in knowledge and quality management practices In order to amend the core KM principles with this clause, the new subsections “g” and “h” have been added These subsections stipulate the organization to identify key knowledge assets In order to carry out this task, the organization is required to avail the services of CKO for identifying, selecting, organizing and transforming important information which is necessary to carry out KM-related activities The same design principles described here were used to amend the KM principles with the remaining main clauses of ISO 9001:2000 standard and their sub-clauses As described here, the contents of the existing ISO 9001:2000 standard have not been altered which implies that an organization which has already implemented the ISO 9001:2000 standard is not required to disturb any of the existing quality system elements At the same time, the amendment of KM with ISO 9001:2000 standard enables the organization to acquire, organize and share the knowledge assets prevailing inside as well as outside the organization Clause number 4.1 Table I A sample requirements of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System Title and requirements Knowledge management-based quality system General requirements The organization shall establish, document, implement and maintain a knowledge management based quality system and continually improve its effectiveness in accordance with the requirements of this international standard The organization shall (a) Identify the processes needed for the quality management system and their application throughout the organization as knowledge management stipulations (b) Determine the sequence and interaction of these processes (c) Determine criteria and methods needed to ensure that both the operation and control of these processes are effective (d) Ensure the availability of resources and information necessary to support the operation and monitoring of theses processes (e) Monitor, measure and analyze theses processes (f) Implement actions necessary to achieve planned results and continual improvement of these processes (g) Identify key knowledge assets (tacit and explicit) of an organization (h) Find, select, organize, disseminate and transfer important information and expertise necessary for various activities, with the help of chief knowledge officer (CKO) Implementation study After designing the Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System, its implementation was examined in an Indian public sector company In governmentmanaged companies of India, rigid systems are installed These rigid systems not allow the test implementation of any new or appended systems Since the company is managed by the government, it was not possible to make much inroad toward implementing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System In fact, the study was restricted to the introduction of few elements of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System into the quality manual For example, the organization chart was appended with the designation CKO This chart is shown in Figure The designation of CKO is italicized to mean that it is now newly added Likewise, under the sub-clause 6.2, the review output of KM by Results Driven Incremental (RDI) methodology was included Besides amending the quality manual, no other major activity for implementing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System could be carried out in the above company Knowledge Managed ISO 35 5.1 Portal development As portal development is the hallmark of any KM-based project (Corbin et al., 2007; Devedzic, 2005), a portal pertaining to clause of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System was developed during this research This portal was developed using ASP (Active Server Page) and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) The functionality of this portal is described in this subsection Soon after the installation, the administrator who will be either the chief executive officer or a senior executive of the company will nominate the CKO ( Jones et al., 2003; Tiwana, 2005) The screen enabling this process is shown in Figure Similar screens will appear to carry out the following processes After the nomination of CKO by the administrator, the CKO has to appoint team leaders If team-based approach is followed in the company, then the leaders of each team will be named by the CKO If departmentalized system is followed, then CKO may name heads of the department Director - Project Deputy Director – D1 Deputy Director – D2 Group Director – D1 Group Director – D2 Division Head – D1 Division Head – D2 Engineers – D1 Engineers – D2 Chief Knowledge Officer(CKO) Note: D1 and D2 are the departments of the organization Figure The organization chart appended with the CKO designation TQM 26,1 36 Figure Nomination of CKO by administrator as the team leaders Now the team leaders are assigned the passwords The team leaders are required to choose the team members All authorities associated with each level of this hierarchy are provided with the right to nominate or remove any of the subordinates For example a CKO may nominate or remove a team leader This facility of the portal is shown in Figure After the choosing of personnel, the portal is opened for operation The contents page opened by the CKO is shown in Figure Since so far only the clause 4.1 of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System has been developed, those links can alone be activated now On pressing the clause 4.1 of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System in this portal, the summary table shown in Figure appears As shown, this summary table is incorporated with sub-clauses of 4.1 of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System As Clause deals with Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System, circulars, meetings and minutes of the meetings dominate the functioning of this clause This facility guides the CKO to monitor the circulars issued and the meetings conducted under this clause The working of the facility to develop a circular is illustrated here On pressing the circular button against ISO 9001:2000 standard in Figure 6, the screen shown in Figure appears As shown, this screen enables the CKO to prepare circular regarding Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System The clause number, date, code, team members and subject appear in this screen The CKO can choose the team leader/s, team member/s and other member/s to whom this circular is to be sent In the example screen shown in Figure 7, the CKO desires to send this circular to a team leader, team member and other member On pressing the send button, this circular is sent to these personnel Now the portal allows the CKO to check whether this circular is read by those personnel The screen enabling this process is shown in Figure Knowledge Managed ISO 37 Figure Nomination/removal of team leader by CKO Figure Contents page of CKO TQM 26,1 38 Figure Summary Table of clause 4.1 of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System Figure Screen enabling the CKO to prepare circular Knowledge Managed ISO 39 Figure Screen enabling the CKO to check whether the circular is read by the recipients As shown, the circular sent to the team leader is yet to be read by him/her As a sample, this circular having been read by the team member is shown in Figure The portal allows both the CKO and team leaders to convene meetings in an electronic environment The screen enabling this process is shown in Figure 10 The meetings may be attended by the personnel even if they are residing outside the premises of the company The portal provides the team members with the facility to share their knowledge The screen enabling this process is shown in Figure 11 The respective team leader consolidates them and develops the minutes of the meetings The screen enabling the team leader to prepare the minutes of the meeting is shown in Figure 12 When the meeting is conducted in virtual environment, the team members are encouraged to indicate the sources of knowledge available worldwide by furnishing the portal addresses All the circulars and minutes of the meeting are provided with the index numbers for enabling their easy retrieval For example, the index number shown in Figure 13 indicates that it is pertaining to sub-clause Besides the portal will display the specific activities pertaining to clause to be carried out at different levels by the personnel The screens viewable are shown in Table II For example, in the screen shown in Figure 14, the CKO chooses the dates October 29, 2007 and November 1, 2007 to view the minutes of the meetings held between these dates In response to this entry, the screen shown in Figure 15 appears In this screen, the list of the meetings conducted between these dates appears Now, the CKO can view the minutes of the meeting by choosing them Since the procedure of conducting Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System is automated, the task of auditing this system is made easier through the electronic indexing system For example, when an auditor desires to check whether TQM 26,1 40 Figure Screen enabling the team member to read the circular Figure 10 Screen enabling the CKO to convene the meeting Knowledge Managed ISO 41 Figure 11 Screen enabling a team member to share his/her knowledge in a meeting Figure 12 Screen enabling the team leader to prepare the minutes of the meeting TQM 26,1 42 Figure 13 Screen showing the meeting (M2) index number pertaining to sub-clause 4.1 a circular was issued on a particular date to a team member, he/she can so by entering the necessary inputs in the portal which would display the necessary details Thus the portal of Knowledge Managed Clause of ISO 9001:2000 based Quality System not only automates the proceedings but also facilitates the managing of knowledge through its virtual operation Roadmap Since infusing KM principles in quality system is very primitive, full-fledged implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System could not be carried out However the experiences of pursuing this research were useful to evolve the roadmap for implementing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System The roadmap thus evolved is pictorially depicted in Figure 16 Since ISO 9001:2000 certification has been obtained by majority of the contemporary organizations, this roadmap has been made suitable for the companies who have already installed the ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System As shown in Figure 16, the implementation program on Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System has to begin by examining the results of installing ISO 9001:2000 or ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System This step is necessary as a handful of researchers have reported that many companies obtain ISO 9001:2000 certification mainly because of the insistence of their customers (Yahya and Goh, 2001; Gotzamani and Tsiotras, 2002; Williams 2004; Singh et al., 2006) In this kind of companies, the continual quality improvement journey due to the installation of ISO 9001:2000 or ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System would not be effectively sensed In this kind of companies, it is not advisable to implement Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System If the company is actively involved in sailing CKO nomination/ removal Administrator (Admin) Viewing of meeting files of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 based quality system Team leader/s nomination/ removal Monitoring of the proceedings of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 based quality system Monitoring of circulars Sending circulars Chief knowledge officer (CKO) Reading of current/old meeting details, knowledge sharing during the meeting, viewing of old minutes of meeting Viewing of current/old circulars Team member (TM) Knowledge sharing – reading and writing Monitoring the conduct of meetings – reading of current/ old meeting details, preparation of minutes of meeting, viewing of old minutes of meeting Team member/s nomination/ removal Viewing of current/old circulars Team leader (TL) Viewing of current/old minutes of the meeting Viewing of current/old circulars Other member (OM) Knowledge Managed ISO 43 Table II Rights and privileges of personnel in Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System TQM 26,1 44 Figure 14 Screen enabling the CKO to choose “from” and “to” dates to view the minutes of the meetings held between these dates Figure 15 Screen enabling the CKO to view the list of minutes of the meeting held between the chosen dates Examination of the results of ISO 9001:2008 based Quality System Knowledge Managed ISO Conduct of exposure program on KM Orientation program on Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System to the managerial level employees 45 Orientation program on Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System to the non-managerial level employees Spelling out of the task to be carried out for implementing and sustaining Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System Selection of pilot area Imparting education and training to the personnel working in the pilot area Implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System in the pilot area Measurement of the performance of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System in the pilot area Expansion of the implementation program to other areas based on its results through the continual quality improvement journey by adopting ISO 9001:2000 or ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System, then management commitment and support may be obtained and the implementation program of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System may be started After that, an exposure program on fundamentals and importance of KM may be conducted to both managerial and non-managerial employees Once the employees are prepared to nourish the core principles of KM, separate orientation programs for managerial and non-managerial employees may be conducted These orientation programs will expose to the participants the tasks that are to be carried out for implementing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System These programs shall be interactive and aimed at overcoming fears of both managerial and non-managerial employees toward the implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System Since the intellectual attitude of both managerial and non-managerial employees needs to be suitably changed, the actual implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System is to be preceded by the selection of pilot area This pilot area should be chosen on the basis of the easiness with which Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System Figure 16 Roadmap for successful implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System TQM 26,1 46 can be implemented While carrying out this task, the factors like the literacy level of employees, receptivity of employees and the size of the area to be covered are to be considered After choosing the pilot area, the personnel working in that area will have to be imparted with education and training on Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System Particularly, these personnel should be trained to use the portal for acquiring and sharing the knowledge with the objective of enabling the organization to achieve core competencies Now the actual implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System has to be carried out After completing its implementation, the performance of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System has to be measured According to the management’s perspective, parameters such as profit, number of customers and customer domain need to be considered while measuring the performance of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System If the performance of the company is improved from the management perspectives, then the Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System needs to the implemented in few more areas If the improvement is not achieved from the management’s perspectives, then the reasons for the failure to appeal the management need to be examined After those reasons are found and corrective actions are taken, the implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 based Quality Systems shall be continued in the pilot area If the results are appreciative from the management perspectives, then the implementation program on Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality Systems may be expanded to other areas of the company Thus this roadmap will help the employees and management to become KM literate and adaptive for nourishing the benefits of implementing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System Conclusion The research reported in this paper has shown the way of amending KM principles with ISO 9001:2000 standard Due to the absence of management support, the implementation of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality Systems could not be effectively carried out in the candidate company Later on, the portal of clause of Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System was developed The experiences gained by pursuing this research were used to evolve the roadmap for implementing Knowledge Managed ISO 9001:2008 Supported Quality System in contemporary organizations Currently the modern organizations are even yet to realize the importance of infusing information in ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality System A search to locate researches infusing information systems in ISO 9001 supported would result in countable papers like Devadasan et al (2003) and Tan et al (2003) In this situation, it is very difficult to carry out the research exploring the practicality of infusing KM in ISO 9001:2000 Supported Quality Systems In this background, this research work suffered from certain limitations Particularly, as mentioned earlier, the implementation could be conducted only to an insignificant extent as this project was not 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3, pp 259-266 Williams, J.A (2004), “The impact of motivating factors on implementation of ISO 9001:2000 registration process”, Management Research News, Vol 27 Nos 1/2, pp 74-84 Yahya, S and Goh, W.K (2001), “The implementation of an ISO 9000 quality system”, International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, Vol 18 No 9, pp 941-966 About the authors Dr V Mohan Sivakumar is a Faculty Member in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the PSG Polytechnic College, Coimbatore, India He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Anna University-Chennai, Chennai, India in 2008 He pursued his master’s degree in Production Engineering in 1992 and bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1990 He obtained these degrees from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India He has one year industrial and 26 years of teaching experience He has published four papers in international journals, ten papers in the leading national and international conferences His research interests include knowledge management, quality systems and failure mode and effects analysis Dr V Mohan Sivakumar is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: vmskumar65@yahoo.co.in Dr S.R Devadasan is a Professor in the Production Engineering Department at the PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, India He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering, a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Doctor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering He has 21 years of teaching and research experience He has published over 76 papers in international journals He is an Editorial Advisory Board Member of the European Journal of Innovation Management His research interests include agile manufacturing, Six Sigma and total productive maintenance Dr R Murugesh is working as the Principal of Darshan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Rajkot, India He holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering and a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering He has more than 20 years of experience in teaching and research He is a recognized PhD Supervisor/Guide He has published 18 papers in various international journals His area of research interest includes strategic productivity management, total productive maintenance, MIS, web engineering, executive support system, etc To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints Knowledge Managed ISO 49 ... facility of the portal is shown in Figure After the choosing of personnel, the portal is opened for operation The contents page opened by the CKO is shown in Figure Since so far only the clause... enabling the CKO to prepare circular Knowledge Managed ISO 39 Figure Screen enabling the CKO to check whether the circular is read by the recipients As shown, the circular sent to the team leader... screen shown in Figure 14, the CKO chooses the dates October 29, 2007 and November 1, 2007 to view the minutes of the meetings held between these dates In response to this entry, the screen shown