Leveraging organizational knowledge is very important to improve the competitiveness of any company. Likewise, in the case of companies engaged in production of goods, proper documentation of manufacturing processes is critical to ensure the quality of products reaching the customers. This paper aims to propose a methodology to structure and document the process that takes place in the development of new products through the application of tools for auditing knowledge in order to ensure quality in the finished products. In addition to the proposed methodology, it is proposed to structure and design procedures for documenting and troubleshooting processes in the development of new products with a primary emphasis on identifying the key knowledge existing in the processes that are intended to document. Obtaining this key knowledge is through the application of audit techniques for knowledge and its representation is through knowledge maps. To validate this proposal, this methodology was implemented in a company engaged in the manufacture of packaging products located in Northwest Mexico.

Organizations are placed in a highly competitive environment where the difference is marked by the use of knowledge of its members so that proper management of this knowledge becomes an important competitive advantage to respond to the changing market demands.

The objective of this study is to propose and implement a model for identifying and documenting key knowledge of the processes involved in developing new products under ISO 9000:2008, in order to improve their quality to meet the requirements of the client.

The paper first presents a theoretical framework that explains the main concepts related to this work, and then the proposal becomes a model for identifying key knowledge for quality improvement in the development of new products. The paper then proposes a methodology for implementation. To validate the model, it is applied in the case of a company that explains each of the activities and results. Finally, the conclusions drawn from this work are presented.

Knowledge Management Journal, Methodology, Key Knowledge, Application, Knowledge Audit Techniques, Mexican Pulp Company, Knowledge Audit.