Knowledge Management

There is a similarity between “Risk” and “Knowledge”: Both have lots of definitions.

I myself use „Knowledge“ in the sense of the highest level in the chain of  characters – data – information – knowledge.
Knowledge is characterized by a preparation and sorting of information in a way to describe a situation and a related activity instruction in order to achieve a target.
So, knowledge enables to answer an if-then clause:  If these boundary conditions are given then do the following….

This may be a process description, a users manual, the advise of your chef or the line taken from the valid production control plan on the shop floor.

  • Knowledge of such kind is worthy in the company. Without this knowledge the daily business would not work or would work more inefficient.
  • Knowledge of such kind firstly is available in the brains of the humans. One part of knowledge management (KM) is to bring this knowledge from human brains into any kind of media. This procedure is called externalization of knowledge and it makes knowledge available for multiple users.
  • Knowledge of such kind is baseline for a company to develop and progress, to collect and make it commercially safe and usable (e.g. as a patent or as a internal and confidential standard).
  • Furthermore, the employees will have a daily learning. They will collect the (internalized) knowledge in their heads. Especially people with intuitive skills and long years of experience regard themselves as a valuable source of knowledge. What is the view of your company on this topic?
  • Creative guys as well as team players create new knowledge and the baselines for new businesses.
  • But knowledge of such kind is aging, degrading in value for the company or even loosing its value add properties.

Therefore, knowledge firstly needs to be accepted as an important invest and property.

Knowledge in a second step needs to be rated frequently.

My expertise is to create an overview on different types and aspects of knowledge.
For the companies questions about value of knowledge should be answered:

  • Which knowledge is essential?
  • Where is investment needed to protect, collect, distribute and update the existing knowledge?

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