Before Understanding what is meant by Knowledge Management System we must know what is Knowledge and Knowledge management. According to nonaka [1994] “Knowledge is a justified personal belief that increases an individual’s Capacity to take effective action.” But according to (Alavi and Leinder, 1999) knowledge is information that is obsessed in an individual’s Mind. Whereas Knowledge Management is a systematic process through which the Tacit and Explicit knowledge is being acquired, organized and communicated.
With the understanding of both knowledge and knowledge management many researchers have defined KMS in many ways. According to Mailer (2007) it is an “Information and communication technology (ICT) system that combines and integrates functions for the contextualized handling of knowledge throughout the organization or that part of the organization that is targeted by a KM initiative”. Also it can be seen as a system that has been developed to support the knowledge management process that include knowledge creation, storage and transfer within an organization. (Alavi and Leinder, 2001). But in a general view it is regarded as the technology that supports the overall execution of the knowledge management systems.
Over several decades many systems have emerged which are supported by Information Technologies to achieve many organizational functions. Such systems are namely Management Information System (MIS) which is used to share information to the management, and Decision support system (DSS) which is help the manger’s in their decision making process (Alavi and Leinder, 1999). In this line the Knowledge management system is emerging systems which assist the managerial activities which involve in creating, gathering, and sharing the organizational knowledge among the stakeholders.
In all the Organizations the Tacit and Explicit knowledge need to be managed properly. Most of the organizations use KMS to manage their explicit knowledge. The most familiar example of such system is known as Enterprise Knowledge Planning System also known as ERP systems (Greenman, 2006). Currently most of the large as well as small organizations use ERP systems to integrate and centralize all the organizational data and information to deliver timely decision and to manage the organizational resources effectively.
Such Type of knowledge management system that support knowledge management processes should be adopted by the strategic management and accepted by all the low level users of the organization (Kaldi et al, 2008). The level of acceptance among the users will affect the value of KMS. This also indicates the value for the investment on such huge projects.
Here I would like to elaborate on a practical example of how the knowledge Management System was successfully implemented in a consultancy firm. In the early 1990s this firm’s strategy “can be stated as “wanting to increase its market share and improve productivity to enable it to become number one amongst the then big companies” (Wickramasinghe, 2002). In order to achieve this long term plan this company adopted newer technologies to develop a Knowledge management system with two major components. The major component called a conference model is developed to support the discussions among the professionals in the organization, and the Library model is developed which has got the collection of knowledge databases which contain the information about the firm. This helped this particular firm to achieve a competitive advantage among other competitors.
Further I would like to share my personal experience on KMS. I was working as a Industrial Engineer for the leading garment manufacturing company in Srilanka who export Leading Brands like M&S and VS to Europe and United States. With the increase in global competition, their main objective was to reduce the lead time in the production. So they introduced the new ERP system called SAP to integrate all their manufacturing plants to a centralized system to share the knowledge among them to cut down the production Lead time. The company provided proper training sessions to all the employees to familiarize the new system to the employees. With the successful implementation of this system the company managed to achieve their objectives and managed to reduce the lead time while increased the total productivity of the Organization.
References
Kaldi, A., Aghaie, A., and Khoshalhan, F.,(2008), “KMS adoption in organizations”, Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2008. IEEM 2008. IEEE International Conference on 8-11 Dec. 2008 Page(s):37 - 41 .
Greenman, M., (2006), “The Contribution of knowledge management systems to interorganizational learning”, Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on computer personnel research 2006.
Alavi, M., Leidner, D., (2001) “Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: Conceptual foundations and research issues” In MIS Quarterly, Vol.25 ,Issue 3: pp.107-136.
Alavi, M., Leinder, D., (1999) “Knowledge Management Systems: Emerging Views and Practices from the Field”, Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 1999.
Ikujiro, N.,(1994) “A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation ” ,Organization Science, Vol 5, Issue 1, pp. 14-37.
Wickramasinghe, N., (2002), “Practising What We Preach: Are Knowledge Management Systems in Practice Really Knowledge Management Systems?”, Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – 2002.
With the understanding of both knowledge and knowledge management many researchers have defined KMS in many ways. According to Mailer (2007) it is an “Information and communication technology (ICT) system that combines and integrates functions for the contextualized handling of knowledge throughout the organization or that part of the organization that is targeted by a KM initiative”. Also it can be seen as a system that has been developed to support the knowledge management process that include knowledge creation, storage and transfer within an organization. (Alavi and Leinder, 2001). But in a general view it is regarded as the technology that supports the overall execution of the knowledge management systems.
Over several decades many systems have emerged which are supported by Information Technologies to achieve many organizational functions. Such systems are namely Management Information System (MIS) which is used to share information to the management, and Decision support system (DSS) which is help the manger’s in their decision making process (Alavi and Leinder, 1999). In this line the Knowledge management system is emerging systems which assist the managerial activities which involve in creating, gathering, and sharing the organizational knowledge among the stakeholders.
In all the Organizations the Tacit and Explicit knowledge need to be managed properly. Most of the organizations use KMS to manage their explicit knowledge. The most familiar example of such system is known as Enterprise Knowledge Planning System also known as ERP systems (Greenman, 2006). Currently most of the large as well as small organizations use ERP systems to integrate and centralize all the organizational data and information to deliver timely decision and to manage the organizational resources effectively.
Such Type of knowledge management system that support knowledge management processes should be adopted by the strategic management and accepted by all the low level users of the organization (Kaldi et al, 2008). The level of acceptance among the users will affect the value of KMS. This also indicates the value for the investment on such huge projects.
Here I would like to elaborate on a practical example of how the knowledge Management System was successfully implemented in a consultancy firm. In the early 1990s this firm’s strategy “can be stated as “wanting to increase its market share and improve productivity to enable it to become number one amongst the then big companies” (Wickramasinghe, 2002). In order to achieve this long term plan this company adopted newer technologies to develop a Knowledge management system with two major components. The major component called a conference model is developed to support the discussions among the professionals in the organization, and the Library model is developed which has got the collection of knowledge databases which contain the information about the firm. This helped this particular firm to achieve a competitive advantage among other competitors.
Further I would like to share my personal experience on KMS. I was working as a Industrial Engineer for the leading garment manufacturing company in Srilanka who export Leading Brands like M&S and VS to Europe and United States. With the increase in global competition, their main objective was to reduce the lead time in the production. So they introduced the new ERP system called SAP to integrate all their manufacturing plants to a centralized system to share the knowledge among them to cut down the production Lead time. The company provided proper training sessions to all the employees to familiarize the new system to the employees. With the successful implementation of this system the company managed to achieve their objectives and managed to reduce the lead time while increased the total productivity of the Organization.
References
Kaldi, A., Aghaie, A., and Khoshalhan, F.,(2008), “KMS adoption in organizations”, Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2008. IEEM 2008. IEEE International Conference on 8-11 Dec. 2008 Page(s):37 - 41 .
Greenman, M., (2006), “The Contribution of knowledge management systems to interorganizational learning”, Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on computer personnel research 2006.
Alavi, M., Leidner, D., (2001) “Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: Conceptual foundations and research issues” In MIS Quarterly, Vol.25 ,Issue 3: pp.107-136.
Alavi, M., Leinder, D., (1999) “Knowledge Management Systems: Emerging Views and Practices from the Field”, Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences 1999.
Ikujiro, N.,(1994) “A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation ” ,Organization Science, Vol 5, Issue 1, pp. 14-37.
Wickramasinghe, N., (2002), “Practising What We Preach: Are Knowledge Management Systems in Practice Really Knowledge Management Systems?”, Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – 2002.
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