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Abstract A major challenge of any knowledge management system is to meet the varied needs of diverse constituencies, both internal and external. Comprehensive, integrated systems are costly to develop, may take considerable time to implement and often lack adaptability. For technical knowledge management related to bit development and application, ReedHycalog has avoided these limitations by employing a range of modules that meet specific needs. The comparatively narrow focus of each of these applications minimises development and maintenance costs, allows rapid introduction, and permits quick adaptation to changing needs. Integration of these diverse packages is achieved through a common software interface and established company practices, supported through user training.
This paper explores the character of ReedHycalog's principle knowledge management modules; we consider how the systems position the company to be better able to create lessons learned, and to establish best practices; we demonstrate the adaptability of the approach in the rapid introduction of a product development monitoring system; we examine, as an example of routine engineer usage, how the user interfaces with each module to produce a technically sound client product proposal.
Such an approach, using the best solutions for specific needs, yet integrated through a designed culture of accessibility and training, delivers a low cost, flexible knowledge management system. This discrete modular solution is a viable and effective alternative to a fully integrated knowledge management system.
Introduction In this opening section we highlight some important current aspects of knowledge management. Then, in the following section, we explore some of the dichotomies that exist in the field, in order to place the company's knowledge management system within a proper context. The paper then continues with a discussion of this system.
What is knowledge management? It is a fashionable and at times contentious means of handling and developing knowledge. There is a large body of literature offering many, often diametrically opposed, definitions and perspectives. (Hislop1 provides a critical review of many of these.) Some authors2 dispute entirely the value of the concept and believe it will soon disappear. Others3 contend it has been presented in an overly optimistic and unduly uncritical manner.
A frequently discussed topic is the distinction between data, information and knowledge4. We see the first as the most solid, objective and factual, yet paradoxically the least useful. Knowledge, in contrast, is more ephemeral, subjective and context dependent, yet the most useful. To be effective knowledge management systems must deal with all three.
For ReedHycalog, a company involved in the design and application of drill bits, repositories for all three categories are necessary. For example: bit run data for hundreds of thousands of bits runs; information on non conformance events; and knowledge of best practices.
Large, unified single data/knowledge bases are notoriously difficult and costly to implement. Recent UK government experience in seeking to develop a nationwide system for the National Health Service is a case in point5.
The company chose to pursue a modular approach, largely because the decision to develop each module was dictated by immediate circumstances and needs. No attempt to create a top down, fully integrated system was considered. This paper argues that such an ad hoc approach has been highly effective.
A similar view has appeared in recent knowledge management literature. For example, Blackler6 et al suggest that organisations should be seen as ‘decentered and distributed knowledge systems’. This emerging view of the modular character of knowledge systems is one we fully endorse.
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