Abstract

Many knowledge management projects seek to access and/or capture some form of background enterprise knowledge. In this paper we look at capturing new technological knowledge as it is created. Whilst engineers and scientists adopt practices that capture knowledge, the practices of each community differ. The lab book is a common capture media for scientists. CAD models and specifications are common knowledge capture media for engineers. In the R&D project that inspired this paper, scientists from a university, engineers recruited by an industry sponsor, and university technicians and tradesmen were organized as a project team. The university hosted the team, and a project manager employed by the industry client managed it. It was observed that traditional practices did not capture all of the knowledge generated as the project progressed. This was of some concern to the industry sponsor, as the team would disband at some point. An action research project was initiated to find an approach to formalizing project knowledge in a way that provided a useful tool for supporting day-to-day activities rather than requiring some additional and possibly distracting effort. Some operational structures were established via a quality assurance approach that sought to ensure the quality of the underlying science, the quality of the engineering, the quality of the product and the quality of manufacture of a very complex product. This paper describes the kind of knowledge structure developed and the way a Wikipedia based repository was utilized.