Knowledge Management

4 factors of production
Machine Money Material Manpower
Knowledge - Heart of todays global economy

Facts about Knowledge:

Knowledge is information in action. Knowledge is what people in an organization know about their customers, products, processes, mistakes, and successes. Unlike the conventional Material assets, which decrease as they are used, Knowledge asset increases with use; Ideas breed new ideas, and shared knowledge stays with the giver while it enriches the receiver.

Types of Knowledge
Explicit knowledge: It is the visible knowledge available in the form of letters, reports, memos, literatures, etc. Explicit knowledge can be embedded in objects, rules, systems, methods etc. Tacit knowledge: It is highly invisible and confined in the mind of a person. It is hard to formalize and therefore, difficult to communicate to others. A master craftsman after years of experience develops a wealth of expertise at his fingertips.

Link bt Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

The above two categories are so heavily interlinked that such a distinction is not possible in pactice. For example, to understand completely a written document i.e. explicit knowledge, it often requires a significant amount of experience i.e. tacit knowledge. A sophisticated recipe is meaningless to someone who has never stood in kitchen or A diagram of machines is indecipherable without an engineering background.

Knowledge Management
is a process that, continuously and systematically, transfers knowledge from individuals and teams, who generate them, to the brain of the organisation for the benefit of the entire organisation. It is the systematic, explicit, and deliberate building, renewal, and application of knowledge to maximize an enterprise's knowledge-related effectiveness and returns from its knowledge assets

Theme of KM
is to leverage and reuse knowledge resources that already exist in the organization so that people will seek out best practices rather than reinvent the wheel.

Knowledge Management
Capturing, storing, retrieving and distributing tangible Knowledge Assets such as copyrights, patents and licenses. Gathering, organizing and disseminating intangible knowledge, such as professional know how and expertise, individual insight and experience, creative solutions and the like, brands, technology. Creating an interactive learning environment where people readily transfer and share what they know, internalize it and apply it to create new knowledge.

Case study on Tatas - KM

Tata Steel ranked as no.1 in 2006 Indian MAKE Survey Tata Group recognized as one of the 2006 Global Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) Tata Steel is selected as a Best Practice Partner by APQC Second Time for KM (Amer Productivity and Quality centre) Tata Steel winner of the first Indian MAKE Award, 2005

 Launch of Knowledge Debate; a mode of knowledge transfer TATA STEEL Launches Knowledge Manthan TATA STEEL Wins MAKE ASIA 2004 AWARD Tata Steel is the Best Practice Partner in Knowledge Management Tata Steel wins the MAKE ASIA 2003 Award Tata Steel - Asian MAKE Finalist 2002