Clause 7 :Support

Requirement
The organisation must determine and provide resources needed for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving the QMS, considering the capabilities of and constraints on existing internal resources and what needs to be obtained externally. Unchanged from 2015.

How to Implement
Build resourcing into your annual budget cycle, explicitly distinguishing between what you can resource internally versus what needs external providers (consultants, specialist equipment, outsourced testing).

Mandatory Documents
No explicit documentation requirement exists for 7.1.1. No mandatory document is required.

Requirement
The organisation must determine and provide the people necessary for effective QMS implementation and for the operation and control of its processes. Unchanged from 2015.

How to Implement
Map headcount and skill requirements against each core process, and flag gaps during workforce planning rather than discovering them during an audit.

Mandatory Documents
No explicit documentation requirement exists for 7.1.2. No mandatory document is required.

Requirement
The organisation must determine, provide, and maintain infrastructure necessary for process operation and product/service conformity, considering buildings and utilities, equipment (hardware and software), transportation, and information/communication technology, applicable to all types of work including on-site, remote, or hybrid arrangements.

How to Implement
Maintain an infrastructure inventory and a maintenance schedule for critical equipment, including IT systems, since remote and hybrid work arrangements are now explicitly called out as a context the infrastructure requirement must account for.

Mandatory Documents
No explicit documentation requirement exists for 7.1.3. No mandatory document is required, though maintenance logs and calibration records are useful supporting evidence (and become mandatory under 7.1.5 where measurement is involved).

Requirement
The organisation must determine, provide, and maintain the environment necessary for process operation and product/service conformity.

New in 2026, the factors to consider are now spelled out in much greater detail: social (non-discriminatory, calm, non-confrontational), psychological (stress-reducing, burnout prevention, emotionally protective), and physical (temperature, heat, humidity, light, airflow, hygiene, noise). A new closing line states that some of these factors can be influenced by the organisation’s quality culture and ethical behaviour.

How to Implement
This is where quality culture becomes tangible rather than aspirational. Concretely, this means auditing your workplace for burnout risk factors (unsustainable workloads, lack of psychological safety in raising concerns), not just physical safety factors.

Practical steps include staff wellbeing surveys, manageable workload reviews, clear escalation paths for raising concerns without fear of retaliation, and physical environment checks (lighting, noise, temperature) already familiar from 2015. Tie this explicitly back to your 5.1.1 quality culture commitments so auditors see a consistent thread, not two disconnected requirements.

Mandatory Documents
There is no explicit “shall be available as documented information” requirement for 7.1.4. No mandatory document is required. It is advisable, though optional, to keep records of staff wellbeing initiatives or survey results, since this is likely to become a common audit interview topic.

Requirement
7.1.5.1 General — The organisation must determine and provide resources needed to ensure valid and reliable results when monitoring or measuring is used to verify conformity, ensuring resources are suitable and maintained for their purpose, with documented information available as evidence of fitness for purpose.

7.1.5.2 Traceability of Measurement Results — Where measurement traceability is a requirement or considered essential, measuring equipment must be calibrated or verified at specified intervals against traceable standards (with the calibration basis documented where no standard exists), identified for calibration status, and safeguarded from adjustments or damage that could invalidate results.

How to Implement
Maintain a calibration register for all measuring equipment, including frequency, due dates, and pass/fail status, and label each instrument with its calibration status so operators can see at a glance whether it’s fit for use.

Where equipment is found out of tolerance, assess whether previously measured products were affected and document any corrective action taken.

Mandatory Documents
Yes, explicitly mandatory. ISO 9001:2026 states documented information “shall be available as evidence of fitness for purpose of the monitoring and measurement resources,” and the calibration basis “shall be available as documented information” where no external standard exists. You must maintain:

• A calibration/verification register for measuring equipment
• Records of the calibration basis used where no traceable standard exists

Requirement
The organisation must determine the knowledge necessary for process operation and achieving QMS results, retain, apply, and share this knowledge as necessary, and consider current knowledge against changing needs and trends to determine how to acquire or access additional knowledge. Unchanged from 2015.

How to Implement
Capture tacit, experience-based knowledge (not just formal documentation) through mentoring programmes, exit interviews, and knowledge-sharing sessions, particularly for roles with high turnover risk or where a single person holds critical process knowledge.

Mandatory Documents
No explicit documentation requirement exists for 7.1.6. No mandatory document is required, though many organisations maintain a knowledge register or lessons-learned log as a useful, non-mandatory practice.

Requirement
The organisation must determine necessary competence for persons affecting QMS performance, ensure competence through education, training, or experience, take action to close gaps and evaluate effectiveness, and retain documented evidence of competence. Unchanged from 2015.

How to Implement
Define competence requirements per role, close gaps through training or hiring, and periodically verify that training actually translated into capability.

Mandatory Documents
Yes, explicitly mandatory. ISO 9001:2026 states “documented information shall be available as evidence of competence.” You must keep:

• Training certificates, CVs, or competence assessment records

Requirement
Persons doing work under the organisation’s control must be aware of the quality policy, their contribution to QMS effectiveness (including benefits of improved performance), and the implications of nonconformance. 

New in 2026, two items were added: (d) relevant quality objectives, and (e) the organisational quality culture and ethical behaviour.

How to Implement
Expand your induction and refresher training to go beyond the quality policy and cover the specific quality objectives relevant to each employee’s role, as well as what quality culture and ethical behaviour mean in practice day to day, not as an abstract value statement.

This is the awareness-side counterpart to the leadership and environment changes above, so treat all three (5.1.1, 7.1.4, 7.3) as a connected programme rather than separate compliance checkboxes.

Mandatory Documents
There is no explicit “shall be available as documented information” statement for 7.3. No mandatory document is required, though attendance records for awareness training (including the new quality culture and ethics content) are strongly recommended as supporting evidence.

Requirement
The organisation must determine internal and external communications relevant to the QMS: what to communicate, when, with whom, and how. Unchanged from 2015.

How to Implement
Build a simple communication plan covering incidents, policy changes, and audit results, and decide who is authorised to communicate externally on quality matters.

Mandatory Documents
No explicit documentation requirement exists for 7.4. No mandatory document is required.

Requirement

7.5.1 General and 7.5.2 Creating and Updating are unchanged from 2015. 7.5.3 Control of Documented Information carries one addition: 

New in 2026, “documented information available as evidence of conformity shall be protected from unintended alterations.”

How to Implement
Apply standard document control practice (identification, format, review/approval, access control, retention). For the new protection requirement, ensure records used as conformity evidence, inspection results, test reports, calibration certificates, sit in a system where edits are tracked or restricted (version-controlled software, locked PDFs, or access-permissioned folders) rather than editable shared documents that could be altered after the fact without a trail.

Mandatory Documents
There is no new stand-alone mandatory document for 7.5.3, but the new protection requirement effectively tightens how you must control every other mandatory record already identified across Clauses 4 to 10. A documented Document Control Procedure, while not explicitly mandatory by name, is the practical mechanism recommended to demonstrate this protection is in place.