Plant Services - February 2008 - (Page 57)

WEB HUNTER Exploiting intellectual capital Use knowledge management to institutionalize what you’re doing well S uccessful competition in a messy, volatile global marketplace isn’t particularly easy, even for the best, leanest, meanest manufacturing plants. It takes an entire company, not just corporate management, to demonstrate any semblance of improvement. It’s the aggregation of all those little things that people do each day, the fine tweaks they make in operating procedures that make a meaningful difference, either for the good or for the bad. In this sense, employees really are a company’s most important asset, as long as they are effective at communicating and diligent about succeeding in the marketplace. Sometimes it really is what you know that counts. Putting employee knowledge to good use right now might be a smart way to generate perceptible value in the marketplace. This is particularly true because, as you’ve no doubt heard, the Baby Boomers are starting to bail out in large numbers. Knowledge management might even be a key to developing your own set of best practices that will topic. The site has a glossary of terms related to knowledge management, but there’s not much beyond that. I couldn’t get the search function to work and many of the links are terminally dead. That’s not much of a surprise, considering that the site probably was a class project and doesn’t appear to have been updated since 1999, when the school turned the students loose to find work in the real world. Anyway, you can go to http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/ is213/s99/Projects/P9/web_site if you want to learn the jargon that can make you sound like an old hand at this knowledge-management business. Join the club Putting employee knowledge to good use right now might be a smart way to generate perceived value in the marketplace. endure when Boomers go on to things that are more fun than working for a living. If you go this route, you’ll need to capture what employees know, document it and share it with other stakeholders, both within and without the building. So, take a few minutes to come with me for another dip into the digital morass we call the Web in search of practical, zero-cost, noncommercial, registration-free resources you might find useful for cleaning up that messy, volatile global marketplace. Remember, we search the Web so you don’t have to. The raison d’etre of the Birmingham, England-based OR Society is a discipline called operational research (OR). In fact, the organization claims to be one of the largest such groups in the world, and has some 3,000 members in 53 countries. Operational research refers to the application of various analytical methods to common activities for the purpose of making better decisions about those activities. For example, an airline can use OR to find the optimum allocation of ticket types – the rigidly constricted loss-leader that gets the publicity, the mid-range that carries the financial load, and the high-priced version that can be purchased on short notice – that maximizes profits. Because knowledge management is an important part of the OR scene, the Society has much to say about it on its Web site. But, accessing the relevant material requires a cumbersome, multistep process. Begin by heading over to www. orsoc.org.uk and find the drop-down menu hidden under “OR & its applications.” Slide down to “OR topics” then, in sequence as pages load, “Introduction,” “Sections currently available,” “Knowledge management,” “Knowledge management, a review” and “Section map.” There is much scholarly material to be had if you make the effort. Glossary Hardware knowledge “Gotcha” bills itself as a guide to knowledge management. A group of graduate students at the UC Berkeley’s School of Information Management and Systems designed the site for both newbies and power users who want to explore the February 2008 “The Importance of Knowledge Management to the AssetManagement Process,” by Hodkiewicz, Coetzee, Dwight and Sharp, was published in Oil and Gas Processing Review during 2006 and addresses the idea of knowledge management as it would be applied to managing assets 57 www.PLANTSERVICES.com http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is213/s99/Projects/P9/web_site http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is213/s99/Projects/P9/web_site http://www.orsoc.org.uk http://www.orsoc.org.uk http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Plant Services - February 2008

Plant Services - February 2008 Contents From the Editor Letters The PS Files Up and Running Crisis Corner What Works Asset Manager: Why Six Sigma? Technology Toolbox: Ensuring a Calm Response Cover Story: Best Practices Awards Lubricants: A Slick Success Story Motors: Reliable Torque Compressors: Before You Call for Help Web Hunter: Exploiting Intellectual Capital In the Trenches Product Picks Classifieds Fast Facts Energy Expert: Energy, Climate and Food

Plant Services - February 2008

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