PROCESS ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

IT System and Case Study

Mirko Auerbach

Research Institute for Operations Management, RWTH Aachen University

Pontdriesch 14/16, D-52062 Aachen, Germany

Andreas Hauser

Ebcot Business Solutions GmbH, Kreuzherrenstrasse 2, D-52062 Aachen, Germany

Keywords: Process orientation, Knowledge management, Case study, IT-System.

Abstract: The paper describes the methodology of process oriented knowledge management and an IT system which

has been developed in a German publicly funded research project. The case study describes the activities

while implementing the ideas of process oriented knowledge management in a large German infrastructure

service provider. The description includes the occurred challenges during the implementation, e. g.

organisational bottlenecks and the question, how detailed a process has to be modelled. The solution of

these challenges is described as part of the paper as well as examples of the information considered and

identified potentials for benefits of the approach.

1 INTRODUCTION

AND OBJECTIVES

As a result of today’s knowledge and innovation

oriented communication era, the existing knowledge

capital of a company turns out to be increasingly the

decisive factor of production (PROBST ET AL.

2006). As an example especially in the industrial

engineering service sector knowledge management

plays a significant role. The products of these

companies are based on complex, non standardized

solutions. The companies realize that the efficient

management and goal-oriented handling of this

factor of production contributes to an increase of an

organizations’ competitive advantage in terms of

product- and service quality. A study in which over

2300 companies from Germany participated, is

confirming this thesis (see figure 1). In addition to a

higher quality and the offer of customized solutions,

the interviewed companies declare the goal-oriented

handling of knowledge as significantly responsible

for their own competitive advantage (PAWLOWSKI

ET AL. 2006). More than 60% of the interviewed

companies of the service sector in Germany are

saying that the enhancement of the product quality is

the main motivation when thinking about the

implementation of knowledge management (PA

Consulting 2004).

Practical experience is showing though, that

many initiatives which want to implement

knowledge management in an organisation aren’t

successful. The calculated cost frame has been

exceeded in most of the knowledge management

projects as well as the defined goals haven’t been

reached.

A possible solution for the difficulties while

implementing knowledge management is to focus on

the business processes of a company. Knowledge is

emerging in the business processes of a company

and is being asked for as well as needed by the

employees in business processes. The process

oriented approach is taking this circumstance into

account by structuring the knowledge needed for

routine tasks according to the real processes in the

company. With this approach, the knowledge can be

offered systematically to the employees at the right

point during the completion of the task (REMUS

2002; HEISIG 2005).

This article is introducing a new ontology-based

IT system to support the process oriented knowledge

management and is evaluating the benefits from a

practical point of view.

262

Auerbach M. and Hauser A. (2009).

PROCESS ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - IT System and Case Study.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing, pages 262-265

DOI: 10.5220/0002272302620265

 SciTePress

020406080100

higher quality

customized solutions

goal-oriented knowledge handling

better image or higher level of awareness

special know-how

faster development of new offers

shorter delivery time than the competitors

additional offers like s ervice, maintenance, training

higher productivity

mor e i nn ovat i ve pr oduc t s

more favorable prices than the main competitors

patents, rights, copyright master

n=2342

Competitive advantage is „very important“

Figure 1: Estimation of competitive advantages.

The described IT system is one of the core

results of a publicly funded German research

project. In the course of the project, the IT system

was evaluated by a number of companies, tested

successfully and reviewed favourably. This paper

describes the experience with the operation of the IT

system in the pilot phase at a large-sized German

infrastructure service provider.

2 METHODOLOGY USED

The process oriented knowledge management is

based on the assumption, that the employees of a

company normally complete their tasks within

defined business processes (REMUS 2002, S. 82;

HEISIG 2005, S. 15). A knowledge management

concept should therefore support the efficient

handling of knowledge in the operative business

processes. The use of business processes as context

of knowledge provides the opportunity to distribute

the knowledge to the employees along the path of

their tasks. Additionally an easy way to put new

knowledge into the system should allow the

employees to instantly document new knowledge

”on the fly” within their normal work. The process

orientation is helping to avoid problems of

traditional knowledge management systems like

additional work and lack of time (BACH 2000,

S. 52; HEISIG 2001, S. 13). The business process

can be used to structure knowledge for knowledge

management solutions in company networks as well.

To avoid communication problems arising from

differing company processes or languages, it is

necessary to develop company independent process

and knowledge structures.

The concept proposed here envisages that every

employee can document his knowledge of any

individual operation during the completion of the

task. Since the technical and process context is

known due to the embedment into the business

process, the operator does not need to assign

keywords or categories to his knowledge.

Employees who need to do the same task later on

can access the saved knowledge directly.

Important results of the projects are two

standards in the form of publicly available

specifications (PAS) for the introduction of

knowledge management in small and medium

enterprises as well as in networks of small and

medium enterprises. These standards allow a

structured and therefore promising introduction of

knowledge management regarding achievement of

objectives as well as planned costs.

3 TECHNOLOGY AND BUSINESS

CASE DESCRIPTION

3.1 Technology Description

The IT system developed in the research project

PROCESS ORIENTED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - IT System and Case Study

263

consequently implements the approach of process

oriented knowledge management. Process oriented

knowledge management begins with modelling the

business process in the company. The modelling of

the business processes is done with an especially

developed process designer. This tool allows the

graphic modelling of organisational structure and

process organisation including company specific

roles and persons. Additionally it is possible to

model the relevant knowledge structure of the

company using the process designer. For this

purpose the designer offers the possibility to gather

the semantics of the sector and link them to precise

implicit (e. g. persons) or explicit (e. g. documents)

knowledge objects.

The system “translates“ all business processes

modelled with the process designer automatically

into executable workflows. The user interface to the

processes and the knowledge is a web portal. This

portal includes a workflow-area in which users can

work on their tasks. The portal contains as well a

Process management area which allows users to

view current or finished processes or to start

processes if necessary.

The suitability of the software for the use via

Internet is necessary for the use in networks of

organisations and in the actual early stage of

development for an easy and quick updating process.

The operation in networks is connected with

difficulties concerning the lost of know-how to

network partners. To ensure a selected knowledge

transfer within a network a security mechanism has

been integrated. It allows giving access rights for

knowledge objects, which are described and marked

out by definable knowledge classes.

3.2 Business Case Description

Currently the method of process oriented knowledge

management and the IT system are introduced to a

large-sized German infrastructure service provider.

In this case, the business processes for the planning

and building of infrastructure are challenging. The

processes include multiple locations and take several

years, leading to complicated coordination processes

and updated documents. Furthermore an employee

experiences only a couple of these processes in their

complete duration and can only resort to a limited

amount of experience. Therefore a good

documentation of the processes themselves and the

availability of templates and experiences within the

processes are necessary for a high quality of the

execution.

Until now, the company has countless documents

like templates, specifications and field reports,

which exist in different versions and are not

completely harmonized. To make matters worse,

some of the documents are named in different ways,

thus making the communication even harder.

To solve these problems the company has set up

a pilot project with some experienced persons with

different points of views to these infrastructure

project. With the implementation of the IT system it

is now feasible to provide the person in charge of a

business process with the needed documents and the

know-how of earlier projects for his current task.

Additionally the information flows without delay

and comprehensible between operators at different

locations.

The following potentials for benefits of process

oriented knowledge management and the supporting

IT-System have been identified; most of them are

applicable for the organisation:

 Processes get documented which is a first step to

quality management.

 Processes are more part of daily business than it

was with paper based process documentation for

traditional quality management systems.

 Processes can be controlled better as there is

information on the actual status available.

 Processes can be automated by using work-

flows, so that the flow of information is quicker.

 Knowledge can be better structured for example

with ontology.

 Knowledge is given to employees in a pointedly

way in processes.

 Horizontal integration of information sources

like wikis, document management systems and

intranets.

Types of knowledge which can be provided to

employees are on high level expert knowledge,

practical knowledge, process knowledge, knowledge

on methods and knowledge on standards and rules.

The infrastructure service provider started with

information about processes. The first knowledge

documented in the system is the following:

 A description of the activity and available

facilities.

 A description of the intended result with quality

criteria.

 Participants and contact persons (person

responsible, persons acting, decision maker,

contributors, persons to be informed).

 Efforts and lead times, which are very important

in the long term running projects for

infrastructure planning.

 Submittals and filed in examples as good

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practices.

The granularity of the process modelling has been an

important challenge which had to be solved. Not

well selected granularity either leads to too long and

detailed processes which require immense efforts for

maintaining and which block the creativity of the

employees or it leads to management view to the

processes which is not useful for daily business.

After having modelled the processes too detailed

activities have been taken together. For this action

the following criteria have been identified. A new

activity should start when:

 A new person is acting.

 A milestone has been reached which shall be

used for information on the process status.

 A new subject area has been reached in the

process, so that the employee needs other

information which can be given pointedly.

As a possible limitation of the approach of process

oriented knowledge management might be seen that

in most organisations there is much which is

unrelated to business processes. But these things are

also activities means mini-processes. If these

activities are knowledge-intensive it is possible to

provide this knowledge to the employees by

describing the activity.

4 CONCLUSIONS

AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This paper described the approach of the process

oriented knowledge management and a new IT

system for the implementation in a company and

presented a case study.

The approach of process oriented knowledge

management is the consequent merging of process

management, quality management and knowledge

management. The approach can be supported by IT-

systems and leads to more efficient handling. Even if

activities are not part of processes in the

organisation the necessary information can be

provided via ontology for different topics.

In the currently running transfer project the IT

system is being refined and implemented with the

method of process oriented knowledge management

in ten companies, where it is extensively used and

evaluated. The experiences from these

implementations are used to document and publish

the methodology of implementing the process

oriented knowledge management in form of a

prestandard together with German Institute for

Standardization as DIN SPEC (PAS).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The project on which this publication is based is

funded by the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und

Technologie (Federal Ministry of Economics and

Technology) under the project number 68676. The

authors have full responsibility for the content.

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