Knowledge management in engineering design: personalization and codification

Abstract

Knowledge management is one of the key enabling technologies of distributed engineering enterprises. It encompasses a wide range of organizational, management and technologically orientated approaches that promote the exploitation of an organizations' intellectual assets. Knowledge management approaches may be divided into personalization approaches that emphasize human resources and communication, and codification approaches that emphasize the collection and organization of knowledge. This distinction is used to explore the application of knowledge management in engineering design, after first outlining the engineering circumstances that have led to the current emphasis on the application. The paper then gives an overview of approaches to knowledge management through personalization, including human and organizational approaches, concentrating on the establishment of communities of practice. The role of information technology is explained both in terms of personalization (communication and team support through computer-supported cooperative work) and of codification through information management, knowledge structuring and knowledge-based engineering. The paper concludes with a discussion of the match of knowledge management approach to engineering circumstance, and of the current challenges of knowledge management.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for its support under grant references GR/R98877 and GR/L90170. The authors are members of the Bath University Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre, also funded by the EPSRC.

Notes

Stenmark (2002) notes that Nonaka and Takeuchi use the term ‘tacit’ knowledge in a different sense to that originally intended by Polanyi (1966), who first made the distinction: ‘… Polanyi speaks of tacit knowledge as a backdrop against which all actions are understood, Nonaka [and Takeuchi] use the term to denote particular knowledge that is difficult to express’.