Knowledge Management Systems
From Isopedia
"A knowledge management system (KMS) is an information system for storing and retrieving organizational knowledge. This knowledge can be in the form of data, documents, or employee know-how. KMS goal is to make the organization knowledge available to Employees, Vendors, Customers, InvestorsPress and who else who needs the knowledge." Kroenke, David M. Using MIS. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Educatino Inc., 2007. 32
Knowledge management is a collection of intellectual assets within an organization. It organizes and protects these assets while also using them to discover new ways to enhance the productivity of an organization. Knowledge management also creates a competitive advantage by generating new technology and allowing great amounts of corporate information to be accessible within an organization. Knowledge management allows for the ongoing creation, updating, availability, quality, and use of knowledge by organization to better serve its customers and improve the quality of work.
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Historical Information
A Knowledge Management System (KMS) is an information system that is designed store and retrieve knowledge. During World War II, people began to understand the importance of learning from experience. With the constant developement of new military weapons and equipment, people began realize the importance of sharing new ideas with each other in order to advance new technologies. People knew they needed to develop efficient learning stretagies. It began to evolve in 1972 when a group from Carnegie Mellon University worked on a system called ZOG. This system was installed on aicrafts in 1983 and involved 28 networked work stations, task management systems and on-line procedure manuals. In 1981 however, two men from the group split off and created Knowledge Management Sysytem Company. They then formed a Knowlege Management System (KMS) product. It was implimented as a distribution data base. The two men used SUM and Appollo workstations because of the sophistication of their graphic resolution. This first product featured a lack of windows and pull down menus. It was developed to be as simple as possible so that the common man would be able to learn how to use it easily. Companies such as McKinsey & Company, General Motors Corporation, Xerox Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, and IBM also started experimenting with knowledge management systems during the 1990's
KMS programs evolved from previous information management tools. These information management tools incorporated numerous features from work environments that were supported by computers. It also evolved from other tools such as document management systems and information management systems.
Technical
Some simply define KMS as just moving data and documents around, because the information already exists, and is not being created. It is just being made more available. The system itself provides for numerous information functions. The system helps with: - Acquiring and indexing information - Finding and accessing information - Capturing and archiving facts - Combining information from different sources - Creating and annotating information
KMS has a few main goals. Ideally, these systems promote communication among various users, help coordination of user’s activities, increase the ease of collaboration among user groups, so that creation, modification and dissemination of information can occur with greater ease, and track progress of projects. Another goal of KMS systems is to broaden the capabilities of current employees by providing them with crucial information for the creation of knowledge. The creation of this knowledge is meant to help these employees actively play a role in a shared and dynamic body of knowledge. All of these goals contribute to a system which functions on a level that allows a copious amount of individuals to organize information in meaningful ways. The information is organized with the hope of achieving certain goals or creating reusable data.
Three practices in particular brought the most content into the creation of knowledge management: Information Management, The Quality Movement and the Human Factors/Human Capital Movement. Information Management was developed during the seventies and eighties; it is a body of thought that focuses on how the information itself is managed. Knowledge management adopts the focus on user satisfaction rather than maximizing the potential of the technology from The Quality Movement. KMS adapted the traits of the quality movement: focusing on the internal customer, overt processes, shared goals and transparent goals. The Human Capital Movement is still being developed for KMS because they are used to work concerned with groups rather than an individual., but they are working on it because they know that the value of human capital is the financial advantage of investing in individuals through education that leads to a high return rate.
In The World Today
More and more companies, corporations, and firms today are using knowledge management systems. Companies like Dell, use a knowledge management system for customer service. Customers who call with problems, concerns, or questions are asked general questions by an answering service in order to transfer their call to different departments. For example, a customer will get transferred to the hardware department if they are having problems with their monitor. The questions that the answering service asks the customers get more and more specific, so that the customer can reach an employee who can answer their specific question. The employee has access to the KMS and is able to find out information about the customer and answer their questions. The federal government is also creating more complex knowledge management systems in order to spread information throughout their departments and offices. It is very costly to have knowledge in different silos across various departments. KMS’s will make information more available to a range of offices and make it less expensive to transfer information. Even universities use knowledge management systems as a way of recording scores and statistics. Gonzaga University, which has now made it to the National Collegiate Athletic Association's basketball championship playoffs nine years in a row, was having problems with their search rankings. These systems are now able help schools competing in March Madness tournaments to more easily manage their Web content for up-to-the-minute updates on team wins, losses, and statistics. Many hospitals rely on knowledge management systems to get information about patients as quickly as possible. Microsoft recently purchased a health inteligence software product named Azyxxi. It was designed to integrate the multiple software systems that have been produced over time within hospitals and large medical establishments. Azyxxi enables doctors and hospital employees to look up information about their patients as quickly as possible, so that patients do not have to wait a long period of time in order to be treated. The system helps join different and unrelated data sources together into a composite database. It also creates new information from existing data in order to generate comprehensive conclusions. It provides a rich user interface experience that users are familiar with and are comfortable using. All of these help make databases clearer and easier to use.
The Future
While the future cannot be predicted it is likely that KMS will go in one of two different directions. It could become successful enough that is so far rooted in the way a company does its business that it becomes a given, invisible. It could also go down a different path in which it does not have any permanent value to a company.
“Intel's IT organization has recently reorganized itself to combine the knowledge management, collaboration and personal productivity groups. Called eWorkforce, the group supports knowledge worker use of PCs, laptops, cell phones and PDAs. The primary goal is to develop integrated solutions for knowledge worker processes—e.g. arranging and conducting an asynchronous meeting or managing a project. While I believe it's a great step forward to integrate devices and support organizations, I'd argue that to make real progress in knowledge worker productivity, we need to disintegrate the target audience. All knowledge workers aren't alike… I'm more confident than ever about the importance—and the difficulty—of addressing the topic of knowledge worker productivity. Just remember: It's the Next Big Thing, and you heard it here first.” -- Tom Davenport, CIO Magazine, Oct. 2003
Works Cited
- Kelly, Bill. "Knowlege Management System." Bill Kelly's: Story of Hypertext. 2001. 1 Apr. 2007 <http://www.ultradevguru.com/ver2_hypertext/kms.htm>.
- "Knowlege Management." KM World. 1 Apr. 2007. KM Wold Magazine. 1 Apr. 2007 <www.KMworld.com>.
- Spector, Michael J., and Gerald S. Edmonds. "Knowlege Management and Instructional Design." Eric Clearing House on Information and Technology. Syracuse University. 1 Apr. 2007 <www.ericdigests.org/2003-1/design.htm>.
- Kroenke, David M. Using MIS. Uooer Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Educatino Inc., 2007.
- Tom Davenport, CIO Magazine, Oct. 2003
- Prusak, L. "Where Did Knowledge Management Come From?" IBM. 23 May 2001. IBM Systems Journal. 11 Apr. 2007 <http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/prusak.html>.
- Barclay, Rebecca, “What is Knowledge Management”, Knowledge Praxis http://www.media-access.com/whatis.html
- Grey, Denham, “What is Knowledge Management” The Knowledge Management Forum http://www.km-forum.org/what_is.htm
Group Members
- Bryan Sievering
- Rich Lauria
- David Mahoney
- Christine Timmermans
