Knowledge Life Cycle and Its Application in Automotive ... - IJRMEE

International Journal on Recent Technologies in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (IJRMEE) Volume: 1 Issue: 2

ISSN: 2349-7947 64 – 69

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Knowledge Life Cycle and Its Application in Automotive Industry: A Review Hrushikesh D. Sawant1, S.N.Teli2, L.M. Gaikwad3 1

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PG-Student, Mech. Engg. Dept. SCOE, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra Associate Professor & Head, Mech. Engg. Dept. SCOE, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra 3 Asst. Professor, Mech. Engg. Dept. BVCOE, Belpada, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra 1 [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract:-Now a day an application of knowledge management is increasing in critical decision making process related to design, process, and product by sharing knowledge of experienced persons within the organization. Due to KM firms can improve the power of decision making so that overall effectiveness of the organization will increase. Most of the automobile companies have used KM initiatives so that any decision will be independent and speedy. Main aim of the research paper is to develop the KM framework for automobile industry with the help of previously established framework and give effective framework to the automobile industry. Keywords: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management Implementation Strategy, Architecture of KM, Proposed framework

__________________________________________________*****_________________________________________________ 1. Introduction: 1.1 What is Knowledge management? KM efforts generally focus on organizational objectives such as performance, innovation, competitiveness, integration and continuous improvement. Generally knowledge is a strategic asset and focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge from different domain. A KM effort helps individuals and groups to share valuable insights of the organization to reduce redundant work and to face changing environments and markets. Attention to knowledge management is growing as many organizations are realizing that they compete in increasingly knowledge-intensive markets [13]. 1.2. Knowledge Management System: Day by day competitive market scenario is changing so to sustain in the competitive market against the new technologies the organization should become more flexible. Thus knowledge become more important element for the organization to drives these key factors. KM is a integrated process to achieve the organizational goal through proper coordination and support by corporate culture that promote KM and support information flow and documentation processes within the organization. Knowledge management (KM) is attracting considerable attention as many organizations realize that they compete in a knowledge economy. Therefore, a key source of sustainable competitive advantage relies on managing knowledge [13]. The vast majority of the existing frameworks in KM efforts focus on knowledge processes that takes place during the so-called “knowledge life-cycle” (KLC). Analysis of knowledge flow should always cover the entire life cycle of knowledge, from its formation, through saving and using, to its end. Like six sigma methodology, KM is also business management system which helps to solve the problems in

the business environment. So knowledge based six sigma strategies goal is to achieve process quality innovation corresponding to six sigma levels to fulfil the need of the customers by utilizing the information from internet, data bases and company portal etc. Both KM and six sigma became management strategy to develop the new paradigm in coming years. 2. Literature Review: Ribière (2008) assesses knowledge flows through knowledge creation (discovery, capture), knowledge storage (retention, organization), knowledge transfer (sharing, distribution), and knowledge use/maintenance. Bergeron (2003) adds to KLC last step, which is knowledge disposal. Stages if his KLC are: creation/acquisition, modification, immediate use, archiving, transfer, translation/repurposin,user access, and disposal. Each phase of the KMLC is associated with issues, input data, support mechanism, and output data. Probst (1998) Attention to knowledge management is growing as many organizations are realizing that they compete in increasingly knowledge-intensive markets. Bureš (2005) Traditional resources related to the industrial period such as land, labour and capital, are not the only resources relevant in the transition to a knowledge driven society and knowledge economy. Wu (2007) concluded that in the knowledge economy, a key source of sustainable competitive advantage relies on the ability to create, share, and utilize knowledge; therefore, knowledge is becoming one of the strategic resources of organizations for the 21st Century. K. Karthikeyan et al. (2010) presents knowledge management as a coordinating mechanism. A firm with a KM capability will use resources more efficiently and so more innovative and perform better. 64

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ISSN: 2349-7947 64 – 69

__________________________________________________________________ Yue Yang Chen et al (2012) concluded that the firms which are good at aligning information technology management (ITM) strategy and human resource management (HRM) strategy with KM strategy demonstrating a high performance level. Hence, firms must employ right information technology (IT) management and HRM practices with KM strategies. According to Nonaka (1995), in an economy where “the only certainty is uncertainty, the only reliable source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge”. Moreover, it is the only resource, whose value does not decrease, but increases with usage (Glaser, 1998), a factor that ensures stable growth performance and competitive advantage. O’Leary, (1998) stated that the goal of knowledge management (KM) is to provide the right information to the right person at the right time. According to Polanyi (2009), where the knowledge is divided into two groups explicit and tacit. Explicit knowledge is formal, systematic, expressed externally, and thus easy to capture, store, and communicate. It can be packaged as information and can be found in the documents of an organization, e.g. reports, articles, manuals, patents, pictures, images. Birkinshaw (2002) determined factors that can accelerate or slow down the rate at which knowledge passes through the life cycle. Those factors that can speed up the rate are: ability of competitors to obtain the knowledge, natural leakage when sharing knowledge, and deliberate codification and diffusion by a company. Fischer (2001) considers KM as a cyclic process involving three related activities: creation, integration, and dissemination. 3. Motivation: From the above analysis it has found that till there is an opportunities in the area of quality costs of supplier, dealer which are the basis for profit optimization to the OEMs and evolve a common KM Architecture with possibilities of customization to suit the needs of various automotive industries. So effective KM module will help the entire automotive industry in assessing and analysing the cost of quality, to find out root causes of poor quality cost and hidden cost in entire supply chain of automobiles which has been not presented in any above literatures. 4. Objective (s) and Scope: 4.1. Objectives:  Improving corporate intranet  Improving documents and record management

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Capturing staff knowledge in a documented form Implementing team collaboration tools and processes A platform to enable prioritization and possible solutions for reducing Quality cost.  A platform capturing various knowledge with various people crystallized at one place and thereby minimizing person dependency.  An Enterprise solution serving as Corporate knowledge and avoid re-investigation, thereby saving time. 4.2. Scope: Presently there is no standard KM framework which serves as a guide for practitioners within the automotive industry, to establish a functional knowledge management system for use within the organisation or for the purpose of sharing knowledge with strategic partners within the value chain. An opportunity exists to fill a gap in the literature where there is a lack of guidance or an outline for successfully conducting knowledge management at the level of the 1st tier automotive component suppliers in the Indian automotive. This study aims to provide an instrument for businesses which will help identify the elements of KM which contribute to the company’s productivity, allowing it to focus its efforts on those elements where they are required in order to improve productivity and profitability. Potentially, this will help to overcome some of their fears of using a Knowledge Management System (KMS) but will also motivate others to use the framework in order for KM to proliferate throughout the automotive component supply industry. 5. Methodology: This work is based on implementation of KM using a data collection and analysis approach. The nature of this work required a methodology that could be flexible to allow open questions to collect information since the organizations under study have many different settings. It allows a picture or model to be built up that, illustrates relationships and patterns of interaction between variables. The data used in this work are mainly collected through different sources of evidence such as: semi-structured faceto-face interviews, questionnaires, phone interviews, organization’s written procedures, websites, onsite visits, and e-mail correspondence. 5.1 Knowledge and Knowledge Management: [16] illustrates the evolution from the data and information eras to that of the knowledge economy as depicted in Table 1.

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Management Concepts

Systems Technology Elements Age

Table 1. Timelines leading to knowledge age [16] The Past, Present and Future Software Systems Systems Engineering Engineering Thinking/Approach Management Management Systems/Project CMM CMM Management Management Data Processing systems Decision support Information (DPS) system (DSS) System (MIS) Artificial Data Information Intelligent Industrial Technology Information

[7] Describe the terms as follows: “Data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events. In an organisational context, data is most usefully described as structured records of transactions. Information is data endowed with relevance and purpose. It is a message with a sender and a receiver. Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values contextual information, and expert insight that provides a

framework for evaluating experiences and information.

Knowledge Management Engineering KMA/EE Knowledge Management System (KMS) Knowledge Knowledge and

incorporating

new

5.2. Challenges and barriers to Knowledge Management: Table 2. below, illustrates the key challenges related to KM, as they are reported by [1].

Table 2. Key Challenges Related to Knowledge Management Information Management Technology Eliminating wrong and old data; Change-management implications; Determining infrastructure requirements; Ensuring customer Demonstrate business value; Keeping up with new technologies; confidentiality Keeping the information current Bringing together the many people Security of data on the internet from various units; Determining responsibility for managing the knowledge 5.3. Critical success factors for implementation of KM System: Researchers [2] and [10] delineate the factors which promote successful KMS implementation. These factors correlate with the areas of leadership, organisation, technology and learning the four domains which are associated with successful knowledge sharing and collaborative cultures [6]. [2], indicate the critical success factors for KM projects. These include, but are not limited to, the following:  Clear KM vision and strategy;  Alignment of KM strategy to business goals;  Promoting a learning culture;  Incentives for knowledge creation and reuse;  A continuous top management support;  Employee empowerment;  A positive attitude to knowledge sharing;  A flexible organisation structure;

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Usable and up-to-date KMS; Knowledge governance structure for maintaining quality of knowledge content. However, [2] also state that there remains a lack of actionable know-how that describes how to actually build a meaningful and business-value-adding KM solution. [15] recommends several factors to help make a knowledge management project a success. [10] Identifies the following critical steps for implementing a KMS: 1. Develop the KM project from the bottom up; 2. Heavily involve the line staff from the beginning to tailor-make the system to the perceived needs of the people who will be using it and get their buy-in to make them “own” the system and promote its usage. 3. Spend time mapping out the structure of the knowledge, for example, carefully conceptualise plan and structure the knowledge-base. 66


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__________________________________________________________________ Make technology the very last step (Technology is by far the least important component but also the most difficult to undo or switch.)

sets, or learning materials and presentations, support both access, or navigation, and efficient learning.  Formatting: Standard page layouts and document structures to make it easy to access and learn.  Linking: Standard links or cross-references connect chunks of knowledge that users may need to access or learn together. The best knowledge architectures contain standard links between related topics, a feature that is especially powerful when implemented in online technology. It is important to recognize that, if knowledge management architecture implemented across the organization through proper way and different types of software technologies such an architecture help the systems, processes and products for specific deliverables related to particular area.

5.4. System Analysis Design and Development: 5.4.1 Basics of Knowledge Management Architecture: In today's information world, knowledge is the most important factor in the long-term success of both an individual and an organization. In the future, the only source of competitive advantage will be the knowledge that an organization contains and the ability of an organization to learn faster than the competition. During the competitiveness knowledge is the most important factor for organizational success so effective knowledge creation, up gradation and storage is essential. An effective KM architecture brings the appropriate knowledge to the point at the moment of need. Employees of the organization should be retrieving the knowledge whenever required from the database that exist both internal and external knowledge for the organization.

5.5 A framework for applying Knowledge Management: A framework serves as a theoretical structure or perspective to form the basis of a theory (Webster's Online Dictionary, 2011). A KM framework, namely the George Washington Four Pillars of Knowledge Management, is recognised and proposed as the platform to be used for deriving the framework for applying KM in the automotive industry. In order to align the merged KM aspect with the four pillars, Leadership, Organization, Technology and Learning, the merged KM aspects have been mapped to the 12 steps derived by [6]. The KM framework shown in Table 3 has been derived from literature and presents the merged listing table legend: Symbol Description  Relationship exists between KM aspect and element of 12-step process. Blank Cell No relationship exists between KM aspect and element of 12-step process.

5.4.2 Knowledge Architecture: Organizing Knowledge for Use The key features of any knowledge architecture include standards for:  Chunking and labelling: Architecture for corporate knowledge bases should contain standard definitions of the types of content needed and standard words or phrases for labelling them. This enables users to search for, learn about, remember, and apply knowledge of various types using known language.  Sequencing: Standard sequences of topics, whether in reference documents, overhead transparency

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Monitor, measure and report metrics

Implement strategy, build and deploy

Plan high level strategy approach

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Develop requirements and Measurement programme

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Establish and priorities goals

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Identify critical knowledge gaps, opportunities and risks

Develop process model

Strategic Leadership Alignment of KM strategy to

Sell high-level plan of action to senior management Engage key stakeholders

KM Aspect

Identify knowledge critical to your business Conduct work-centered analysis

Table 3 Proposed KM Framework for automobile industry Leadership Organization Technology 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Learning 12

Learns from results

4.

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__________________________________________________________________ business goals Organizational learning Value proposition Organisational KM context Top management support Employee empowerment Organisational infrastructure Technological Infrastructure KM governance structure and process

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6. Conclusion: 

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The automobile industry is a source of economic growth and prosperity. So managers and designer need to manage knowledge effectively during its life cycle like a product life cycle. Combination of Six Sigma, KM and COQ are supportive to each other and are powerful tools which can best help Automobile Industry to survive in cut throat competitive global markets. With effective use of KM the companies can work on cost of quality, launch quality products, reduce internal rejections, improve supplier quality, reduce field failures, reduce recalls, retain market share, increase revenues, have competitive product pricing with best possible features, have pool of satisfied customers and retain brand name. Developing a knowledge management strategy provides a unique opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the way the organisation operates, and the challenges that confront it. By focusing on identifying staff needs and issues, activities and initiatives can be recommended with the confidence that these will have a clear and measurable impact upon the organisation. Taking this approach to the development of a KM strategy allows limited resources to be targeted to the key needs within the organisation, delivering the greatest business benefits while positioning the organisation for long-term growth and stability. The concept of KLC can be a powerful tool for understanding how ideas are transformed into commercial products and services, and in view of this, it

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is desirable to propose and develop a concept of the KLC in detail. References: 1] Alavi, M., Leidner, D. (2001). Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: conceptual foundations and research issues. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 1, p. 107-136. 2] Baloh, P. and Desouza K.C. (2009). Towards knowledge needs-technology fit model for knowledge management systems. [online] Available at: (Accessed 18 May 2011). 3] Bergeron, B. (2003). Essentials of Knowledge Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: New Jersey. 4] Birkinshaw, J., Sheehan, T. (2002). Managing the Knowledge Life Cycle. MIT Sloan Management Review. Fall 2002, Vol. 44, No. 1. 5] Bureš, V. (2005). KM-Beat-It: Metodika zavádění znalostního management. E+M Ekonomie a Management, Vol. 8, No. 7, p. 36-50. 6] Calabrese, F.A. and Orlando, C.Y. (2006). Knowledge Organisations in the Twenty-First Century: Deriving a 12-step Process to Create and Implement a Comprehensive Knowledge Management System. Journal of information and knowledge management systems, 36(3): 238-254. 7] Davenport, T.H. and Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge: how organisations manage what they know. Paperback 2000 edition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 8] Fischer, G., Ostwald, J. (2001). Knowledge Management: Problems, Promises, Realities, and 68


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Challenges. Intelligent Systems and their Applications, IEEE, Vol. 16, Issue. 1, p. 60-72. K.Karthikeyan , R. Rengaraj Alias Muralidharan (201 0) “Impact of Knowledge Management Practices in In dian Automobile Industry – An Empirical Investigation”, Int. J. of Information Technology and Knowledge Management JulyDecember, Volume 2, No. 2, pp. 627-631 McGarrity, J. (2000). Implementing a Knowledge Management Solution: From Scattered, Individual Tools to a Shared, Fully-Stocked Workshop. In Proceedings of the 29th annual ACM SIGUCCS conference on user services, Portland, Oregon Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organization Science. 5(1): 14-37. O’Leary D. E. (1998). Knowledge management systems: converting and connecting. Intelligent Systems and their Applications, IEEE, Vol 13, Iss. 3, p. 30-33. Probst, G. J. B. (1998). Practical Knowledge Management: A Model That Works. Little, A. D. Prism, Vol. 2, p. 17-29. Ribière, V. M., Román, J. A. (2008). Knowledge Flow. Jennex, M. E. Knowledge Management Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications. Hershey: Information Science Reference, p. 10861095. Skyrme, D.J. (1997). From information management to knowledge management: Are you prepared? [online]. Available at: Stankosky, M.A. (2005). Advances in knowledge management: University research toward an academic discipline. Wu, W. W., Lee. Y. T. (2007). Selecting knowledge management strategies by using the analytic network process. Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 32, p. 841-847. Yue-Yang Chen , Hui-Ling Huang (2012) “Knowledge management fit and its implications for business performance: A profile deviation analysis”, Knowledge-Based Systems 27 (2012) 262–270, Elsevier.

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