192 Bayer, Enparantza, Maier, Obermair, and Schmiedinger
Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
parts manufactured by various DMCs. Therefore, it is important that an appropriate
basis for context-based sharing of knowledge and context-based collaboration
between DMCs is established.- Management of intellectual property: DMCs cooperate on the one hand in certain
areas and on the other hand, they compete in markets (coopetition). This fact
creates a significant barrier for knowledge sharing across organizational bound-
aries and requires measures to ensure confidentiality and protect the individual
company’s intellectual property. - Distributed incompatible sources of data: Publicly available information about
standard parts or cutting data has to be collected from several sources for each
single process step. These retrieval activities are extremely resource consuming
and it is not guaranteed that they deliver up-to-date information.
CASE DESCRIPTION
The Know-CoM solution aims to bridge the gap between a technology-oriented and
a human-oriented KM approach (Maier, 2004, p. 355). On the one hand, there is a
substantial amount of documented knowledge that is spread across the knowledge bases
of cooperating SMEs, customers, and suppliers that have to be semantically integrated.
On the other hand, important knowledge resides in the heads of highly skilled die and
mold makers that act in a number of roles with respect to the production process. Thus,
the Know-CoM solution consists of an organizational design of the knowledge pro-
cesses that have to be supported by a technical solution and a procedure model that
guides the implementation of KM in the toolmaking companies.
Standard KMS have a centralized architecture and normally aim at large organiza-
tions, but do not focus on the cooperation between multiple small companies in different
locations. However, decentralized KMS seem to fit better for SMEs because they help
(see Maier, 2004, p. 284)
- to reduce the substantial costs of the design, implementation, and maintenance of
centralized knowledge management suites, in terms of hardware, standard soft-
ware, as well as the often underestimated costs of designing, structuring, and
organizing a centralized knowledge server; - to reduce the barriers of individual knowledge workers to actively participate in and
share the benefits of a KMS, because knowledge-sharing procedures are inte-
grated in their daily work processes; - to include individual messaging objects (e-mails, instant messaging objects) into
the knowledge workspace that are rarely supported by centralized KMS; and - to overcome the limitations of a KMS that (almost) exclusively focuses on
organization-internal knowledge whereas many knowledge processes in die- and
mold-making companies cross organizational boundaries.
Concerning DMCs and cooperation between them, particularly the low-cost crite-
rion and the consideration of knowledge processes across organizational boundaries are
specifics that have to be considered and seem to be better supported by decentralized
KMS.