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and jointly develop knowledge with their suppliers and customers. Suppliers hold
expertise concerning characteristics of materials, tools, and about standard parts needed
to manufacture dies or molds. Customers possess knowledge about how the parts that
are produced using these dies or molds meet the requirements of the customer’s
customers. For example, when a plastic part for the automotive industry, such as a car
dashboard, is produced, the part has to fulfill requirements regarding surface structure
or stability. These requirements must be considered by the die and mold maker during
the design phase of the tool with which later the car dashboard will be produced.
Additionally, customers of DMCs use different injection-molding and die-casting
machines to manufacture parts, which vary in the dimensions power, feed, stroke,
clamping surface, force, and so forth. Die- and mold-making companies depend much on
experiences with customer machines and materials because the produced tool has to fit
in the injection-molding or die-casting machine.
In the next section, we discuss the representative knowledge-intensive core
business process of DMCs and study the main issues concerning knowledge exchange,
application, retention, and securing.
SETTING THE STAGE
For the detailed analysis of the core process and the technical environment of
DMCs, we used questionnaires as well as expert interviews with CEOs, designers, and
production planners of seven European die- and mold-making companies. Based on the
actual state and requirements identified, we derived a number of knowledge-related
challenges. The questionnaires were composed of questions concerning the following
areas:
- IT infrastructure and use of IT in the companies
- Production process and its information and knowledge flows
- Handling of knowledge in the company
- Cooperation with partners, customers, and suppliers
- Software requirements and expectations from a KMS
The IT part investigated the technical environment of DMCs as well as the
employees’ technical expertise. Alongside the hardware available and the software used,
we studied the media preferred for internal and external communication.
The questionnaire was used to obtain information about typical development
processes of DMCs and to distill the core process. For each process step, it was analyzed
which data, information, or knowledge is needed; which sources it comes from; which
data, information, or knowledge is created; and where knowledge gaps or potential for
improvement exist. Furthermore, experts and persons responsible for process steps were
determined.
We asked which kinds of knowledge (e.g., knowledge about products, partners,
skills) are stored in which way (e.g., electronically, on paper, or in the heads of people),
which criteria were used to structure documents, and what were the main topics. Next to
the handling of knowledge, the use of KM-related tools was analyzed. Concerning
cooperation, it was examined which roles perform cooperative activities as well as which
activities the DMCs intend to carry out with Know-CoM in the future. Additionally, we