Posted by kah-hin chai on July 08, 1997 at 06:48:01:

In Reply to: Re: Knowledge Management in Manufacturing Organisation posted by Yogesh Malhotra on July 07, 1997 at 19:29:52:

I read with great interest The knowledge creating company. What I think for this perspective (and others authors) emphasis
much on innovation, creation of new knowledge. I believe that it is far too common that we re-invent the wheel, and that is what we try to achieve here,
reducing the amount of wheel re-invented. This is particularly common in large organisations.

I am not sure how far a comprehensive framework could be developed to encoumpass the creation and management of knowledge for all industries. Personally I think
service industris such as entertainment and consultanting are ahead of manufacturing in managing tacit knowledge. Likewise manufacturing organistions have been good at
taking care of explicit knowledge (documenting procedures, etc - making it operator-independant). Which is why I think if we understand tacit knowledge better (and hence
managing it), we can leverage more. Perhaps service industries could learn from manufacturing on how to make knowledge (some) explicit, so that at least some retains
in the office after employees left home at night!

Recently The Economist(May 31st, 1997, pp84)wrote a critique on Prof. Nonaka's work and knowledge management, particularly on the framework applicability to small and medium industries (
such as Sillicon Valley) and management fad. What I am deeply concern is, is KM another management
fad? While managing knowledge is forever the job of managers, consultants might bring it too far and create the negative image, thus hindering the real insight that we can make in the area.

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