03.2
Knowledge, as distinct from information
Has anyone captured why the asset is the way it is, and what was accepted rather than resolved?
What goes wrong without it
Design intent is the least recorded and most valuable category of what an owner inherits. An operator who does not know why a system was configured a particular way cannot safely change it, and will eventually either leave a defect alone or introduce one while fixing it. Every large project also ends with a private list of things accepted rather than resolved, held in people’s heads and in email. That list is reliably what operations most needs and is never a deliverable.
What to examine
- Ask, in writing and before demobilisation, what was accepted rather than resolved. People generally answer a direct question.
- Check whether design intent is recorded anywhere other than in the drawings.
- Identify which individuals hold undocumented knowledge and whether any mechanism exists to transfer it before they leave. Usually the mechanism is a leaving date.
- Test whether the organisation has determined what knowledge is necessary for the operation of its assets, which the second edition now requires explicitly.
Required by
- ISO 55001:2024, Clause 7.7, knowledge, new in the second edition and listed by ISO among the main changes from the 2014 edition.
- ISO 19650-3, information management during the operational phase of assets.
Read the sources
- ISO 55001:2024, asset management system requirements2024 edition; read 2026-09-26.ISO’s product page: the publication details and ISO’s own summary of the standard, not the requirement text. The contents, foreword and introduction cited in this publication are taken from the standard’s preview pages hosted on the ANSI webstore, not from this page.
In the asset lifecycle method
The steps of the two methods that this domain examines.