Knowledge Management System For Motorola Information Technology Essay

Organizations are realizing how important it is to know what they know and be able to make maximum use of the knowledge. This knowledge besides in many different places such as filling cabinets, Data warehouses and pupil’s head which are distributed right across the enterprise. As we mentioned in our group work as rework which modestly reflects here too, in the sense, most of the time one section of the enterprise repeats work of another section which had been already established and carried out since it is impossible to keep track and make use of the knowledge in the other section may be in the same department sometimes in different departments too, this can be extended further as country wise either. These organizations need to know what their knowledge assets and how to manage and utilize these resources to get the maximum outcome.

The main purpose of this research document is to find out how high the Motorola would need a Knowledge Management system for its Research and development department. In which I have found out a suitable model to represent the system which would put forward a perfect match.

Introduction

Changes in the environment – intensifies competition, a splintered mass market, shortened product life cycle and automation – challenge companies to improve their research and development process (Clark & Fujimoto 1991; Kumpe and Bolwijn, 1994). These Research and Development process can be primarily be seen as information transformation process (Clark and Fujimoto, 1991; Moenaert & Souder, 1990), transforming information about client orders market demands and technological advancements into product and process designs (Weerd – Nederhof et al., 1994) thus improving Research and Development processes will mainly have to do with either improve the quality of the information input, or improving the capacity or the capability of the Research and Development function into valuable output. The information input needed to develop products and processes will be partially new, coming from outside the company, stored in the minds of people in archives, in equipments, in procedures and etc. The focus of this document will be on this large internal stock of information, which I will call the ‘organization’s knowledge base’. More and more people agree that this knowledge base is a valuable company asset, and that enlarging the knowledge base and improving its use will contribute to the effectiveness of the Research and Development process (Meyers & Wilemon, 1989; Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1986). However, Knowledge, Knowledge creation and Knowledge dissemination in organization are unpredictable, complex matters which are difficult to manage. In this documentation I attempt to unravel the complexity of these issues by introducing a descriptive model that ties together many current insights into research and development processes in Motorola, knowledge management and related subjects we intend for this model to be the starting point for the development of a practical tool that can be used by the research and development department to assess the current situation and uncover bottlenecks in knowledge management.

Literature review

Knowledge management involves procedures and techniques used to aquire the most from an organization’s implicit but codifies savvy (Teece, 2000). While describing knowledge management concept it should be process of knowledge of organization such as storing, collecting, structuring, sharing, controlling, creating, disseminating, codifying using and exploiting. These processes which are based on managing knowledge have been evaluated non- hierarchical order in knowledge management literature and describe part of the knowledge management definition. Therefore this research is aimed to construct the knowledge management definition in the organization and investigate how organization can apply knowledge management for research and development by taking into consideration of all details of the knowledge processes in hierarchical order and how does this model can be maintained.

According to Awad and Ghaziri (2004:24), there are four processes of knowledge management which are consist of capturing, organizing, refining and transferring. The capturing phase deals with knowledge capture and includes even from the organizations communication via e-mail, audio files digital files and the like. After the capturing phase the captured data or information should be organized in a way that can be retrieved and used to generate useful knowledge. the internal process could be indexing, clustering, codifying, filtering and the other methods can be used. The third process of knowledge management is refining. Data mining can be applied in this phase. Data mining takes explicit knowledge found in database and transforms it into tacit knowledge. The next come, the last phase, knowledge management transfer. The aggregated knowledge should be disseminated or transferred by making knowledge available to employees via tutorial or guidelines for effective use. These decision concern the research and development performance criteria to be pursued, the operational, management and support process the technologies incorporated in people tools and equipment, needed to perform these processes and thee organizational arrangements (structure and culture) dividing and coordinating the processes. The research and development strategy elements illustrate the dependence of the research and development strategy upon the business strategy and the other functional strategies. Furthermore the research and development strategy ought to be an ongoing process of planning and designing – implementing – monitoring – learning- (re) planning and (re)designing and etc. The framework of Weerd – Nederhof et al. (1996) who used it amongst other available frameworks, as basis for a communication and analysis tool for the purpose of assessing quality in research and development. The notable point that, defining the research and development strategy, special attention should be paid to be a proper mix of, and alignment between, the so called the ‘system technical’ and ‘social dynamic’ attributes of the strategy elements (Weerd – Nederhof et al., 1995)

Koivuniemi, Piippi and Tuominen (identified) a broad set of purposes for the product development process, including: to help carry out the right things in the right time with the right resources; to promote the controllability, systematic and risk management; to coordinate the task of different functions and departments; to promote learning and continuous improvement; and to take the entirety into account in single decisions. To accomplish these purposes the right knowledge must be available to the right person at the right time. Rousel, Saad and Erickson (1995) suggested that the only real product of Research and development was knowledge. Pegels and Thirumurthy (1996) found that development of technological strength and accumulation of knowledge resulting from Research and Development efforts determined firm performance in high- tech industries. Thus innovation-oriented Research and development processes are knowledge intensive that not only using existing knowledge but also create new knowledge which provides competitive advantage to the firm.

Secondly, the knowledge critical for research and developments resides in many sources. It identifies and categorizes major sources on two dimensions, internal versus external and tacit versus explicit. Internal sources are inside the firm and generally controlled by the firm. Knowledge from internal sources is mostly is proprietary in nature and should be protected..External sources are outside the firm and controlled by other entities. Such as competitors, alliance, partners, customers and government agencies. Knowledge from external sources can be in the public domain and therefore available to all.

Boisot’s I- Space Knowledge Management Model

The Boisot’s model is based upon treating information as an “information good” rather than physical asset. It distinguishes data and Information on the basis that information is what the receiver extracts from data as a function of his or her expectations or prior knowledge. For effective knowledge management to take place the context of the involving parties must be shared. Thereby this model emphasizes two concepts; the better the data is structured and converted, the more it becomes diffusible and the less the data is structured the more it requires a shared context for diffusion.

The Boisot’s I-Space KM model can be depicted as a three dimensional cube as codified-uncodified, abstract-concrete and diffused-undiffused. In this the model data is codified and abstracted in order to be structured and comprehended. Codifying refers to the process of creating content categories. This model addresses the tacit form of knowledge giving attention to many situations where, the loss of context due to codification may result in the loss of valuable content. This content needs a shared context for its interpretation and implies face-to-face interaction and spatial proximity which is analogues to socialization in the Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995).

In Motorola, the implementation of Boisot’s model is possible mainly within departments, since the data has to be codified and abstracted. These processed data may convey a knowledge that is relevant only to the department that collects and structures the data. If another department calls for this knowledge which is already codified according to later needs, it may have to be structured again, and it simply leads to waste of resources.

Discourse Analysis

This model can only be executed within same contexts. In a departmentally structured organizatio333n, the discourse analysis has the major drawback of being used between departments. The executives of the same department may only have the ability to carry out categories and developing relationships between exchanges, sequences, and episodes of messages. Data processed in such a way will produce knowledge that is only understandable to the department that created it.

The Potential of the Novel Model

The literature identifies five primary aspects that can affect such successful knowledge sharing implementations; developing relationships between source and recipients, form and location of knowledge, recipient’s learning predisposition, source’s knowledge sharing capacity and the broad environment where sharing occurs. Research suggests that three types of knowledge sharing activities to be evaluated. Firstly, the analysis of form and location of knowledge are important since they can affect the complexity of the ways of sharing processes. Secondly, the types of agreements, rules of engagement and managerial practices adopted should be evaluated since they can shape the flow of resources and knowledge between the parties while overcoming their relational differences. Thirdly, the specific knowledge sharing activities used are important since they are the means through which the parties seek to facilitate knowledge sharing. Hence we believe by introducing this strategic model for Motorola Sri Lanka ADC division, its key pain points can be addressed effectively.

Application of the Novel Model in Motorola Sri Lanka

When elaborated further, we see that Motorola Sri Lanka has several areas of improvement that can be addressed by this novel model. Firstly, the information design and speedy research can be achieved by the appearance of the information which guides the reader’s eyes effectively so that time is saved in collecting the data while the quality of the outcome is preserved. Secondly, workplace wellness can be addressed in such terms that a healthy work environment and lifestyle improves productivity. Thirdly, the document structuring, where the logical hierarchy of information blocks and target writing, where the word choice, terminology and paragraph cohesion influence meaning can be controlled. Fourthly, the processing infrastructure and filtering techniques where a well-organized office uses computer systems to improve work performance and other cognitive and technical aids to increasing work process efficiency is considered. Lastly, speedy reading and notation, with respect to the company culture, language and information quality standards, enabling the internal documentation be read more quickly and verbal information can be written more efficiently.

After gathering the proper understanding of the above concepts and technologies, we have planned to frequently discuss and reviews the current changes of desired mechanisms by staying up-to-date with the information. After a broad literature survey, we discovered some researches being done in similar areas and that a few prototype level products have been developed.

Conceptual Framework

Several studies have tried to identify and characterize the stages of the technology cycle in order to better understand why some technologies succeed and others fail and whether established firms or new firms are more likely to be successful in introducing or adopting new technology. One technology evolution model rose to prominence was proposed by Utterback and Abernathy. They observed that the technology passed through distinct phases.

“in the first phase, there was considerable uncertain about both the technology and its market. Products and service based on the technology might be crude, unreliable or expensive, but might suit the needs of some market niches. In this phase firms experiment with different form factors or product features to assess the market responds. Eventually, however, producers and customers begin to arrive at some consensus about the desired product attributes and the Dominant design emerges” – Utterback and Abernathy

As I did the research about the company and the environment it faces I found that it has main focus on two areas. One is the internal, and on the other one is the external which comes to play. On the internal’s side, the information are gathered from the past projects and all the projects they faced, they will be categorized into 4 sub modules. As we spoke on the group report model they are as, Document management system, Discussion management system and Capability management System.. Through these three the Motorola could furnish itself to gain knowledge. but these all serves on the internal phase.

Document management system, since the modern era started all became computerized, so will this be an exception. It won’t, the old archiving document system and the space it took were chopped down with this technologies came in to view. Piles and piles of books which took shelves and rooms, now stored in bits and bytes in so called sector chambers in the hard disks. This provides fast and efficient retrieval in clicks of a mouse, and it also allows the people working on the system to get the relevant information much faster and controlled distribution facility. In the way it transfer knowledge, it can be called as tacit-to-tacit.

Secondly, Capability management system, this would hold the data from the very internal people who work for the organization for a certain period of time and who have processed good knowledge in the field. The skills and the experience they hold are very vital to get on new research and development processes. In Motorola, this could be applied in the form of maintaining a database of structured information such as resumes, qualifications, achievements and experience of each employee.

Thirdly, Discussion forum system, this promotes knowledge distributions and concept sharing capacity among the employees. It would involve employees of all hierarchies to subscribe in relevant forums and discuss current issues, exchange ideas, clarify doubts, provide feedback, update learning and make announcement so as to keep up-to-date with the current organizational atmosphere. This could be either the internal system which they run locally (only in Sri Lanka or it could also beyond the boundaries of countries)

At last, Lesson learned system, for a strategic example we can take the learning curve as a model for better understanding. As Motorola learns the technology and the better models it can produce for its clients (mainly focused on the barcode reading technology), it could become more efficient and deliberate on specific products. This becomes so needful when a department loses its calibrated individuals from it.

Individual teams

The Motorola, Sri Lanka, is working on a kind of a heavy weight team structure where they will be dedicated as groups and work under project managers. This particular method has lead Motorola forward in a very aggressive way.

As per the model, there is an expanding element that is present when teams and individuals discuss the past information and review the information they have obtained. The expansion process creates new knowledge beyond that contained in the each individual’s heads. This is called “between minds knowledge” related to interactions that take place between individuals and within teams. It is out of this focusing, filtering and expanding process that the ideas for the research are created. Because the pursuit of knowledge creation is central to innovation and thus critical to research and development, leaders expand an extraordinary amount of effort to develop this aspect of the knowledge flow. This strong focus is where Knowledge Management for innovation differs from that for some other functions in which reuse of knowledge is emphasized.

Further on, in Motorola ideas are prioritized on decision making process, the most promising selected, and experimental program put into place. When programs are being executed, the outputs being generated are filtered again, then it will have to be assessed the ability to meet its strategies and goals. From here on, actions will be taken and the results will be delivered. The results could be either positive or negative, they produce information that is returned to the sources of reuse in the knowledge flow process. The interface with external process such as marketing manufacturing and so forth, generally is considered to occur through the interchange of results.

Goals

As I described in the individual teams’ section, the ideas will be further planed as it put forward. In here this will set the milestones the particular tasks and further more the tasks which are divided among the (heavy weight structured) group on which they would actually work on. Strategy and goals continue to provide overarching guidance for the entire process. Most of the projects are conducted within the given background or the context. Certainly, in the case of industrial work, the tracking down knowledge without a purpose or aim does not create, thus the purpose and the goals from the corporation value, this purpose and the goals from conceptual model which I have derives on the above.

Learn

Similarly, the model is process centered, with each set in the context of some external process. Culture is often notes as major concern. In Motorola the knowledge it requires for research and development can be called as a very people-dependant activity and largely information technology independent. Although it plays role in facilitating knowledge creation, capture and reuse, it is actually the people and the interaction the company’s department had with the environment (either internally or externally) brings up

As I spoke about the priority issues like I said above, interview with some of the employees in the research and development department and also the employees from the supporting departments such as marketing and technology. This revealed many information, some are from the leading project managers too.

Priority concern

One of the people I interviewed was Mr. Witharana Hewage, who was a project manger of research and development department, Motorola. He brought up some point, one is, the most important and often cited issue dealt with culture and optimum use of the company’s internal knowledge base. Some of the priority issues were.

What kind of a culture facilitates knowledge flow and how can it best be designed on the products they innovate through research and development. And also how it is incorporated and designed. Secondly, he rose, what could be possibly done to accelerate the research and development process in the organization. This will be retrieved from the knowledge the Motorola has preserved from the four sources as explained before (Document management system, lesson learned system, etc.) in this phase the core model has been divided in to three phases which are learn before, learn during and learn after.

These three entities hold a major part in the model, the faster knowledge can the Motorola create, the more value the company can add up to its newly developing product (from research and development) if the Motorola can seek out the right trend what the market needs, and what are the lacking technologies it could produce to have its design and its product’s technology by skimming the market with researches and the past record the company learnt through. (document management system, lesson learned system, capability management system and discussion forum system). By this the Motorola could produce its newer technologies more effectively and efficiently whereby the cost of innovation decreases.

Also, the Motorola engages in incremental innovation processes too. Reducing the cost of the existing product is also a great value addition technique. And in more general sense if the Motorola can align its set of goals in these three cycling phases (Learn during, Learn During and Learn after)

The outperformed innovation or the product which has been successfully completed will be rolled out for the inventory or else strait to the market.

Methodology

Some Interview questions

Does the administrator of MOTO need to keep track on all the employees as per the initial interview mentioned.

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Purpose : asked to clarify whether it was certainly necessary to track employees and also since tracking may sometimes be unethical, depending on the way tracking is carried out, because of that the way of tracking of employees that Motorola Sri Lanka intended was necessary to be specifically clarified, what details was needed to be tracked, and so on.

What would motivate or trigger you to seek knowledge from the Knowledge Management system

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Purpose : was put forward to trigger Motorola Sri Lanka to exactly find out the events that they will need the support of a KM system. By that to make Motorola Sri Lanka more knowledgeable about KM and to be more informed about the situations that they are able to use a KM system.

Could you please tell me the possible methods the COMPASS (global Knowledge management) system hold the details in the system (data warehouse)

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Purpose : The aim was to get the feedback about the system COMPASS(global) that Motorola International was using from the repository of feedbacks that COMPASS maintains. By getting the feedback results about COMPASS what we hoped to archive was to rectify any defects that there would be in the system we hope to introduce

Questionnaires

Glossary for the answers

N/A or U/K

You are not familiar for the area or do not know the answer

Fair

You agree that the answer is somewhat agreeable, sometimes it could even be wrong

Average

Illustrates that the result is agreeable and cannot be wrong

Moderate

Totally agree with the situation

Excellent

The answer is yes without doubt, appreciate it

Knowledge management for research and development will help the organization to produce new innovation

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

How high the knowledge management system would ease the day to day job in the research and development

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

To bring up new dominant designs to the market will the knowledge management be helpful (in research and development department).

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

All the information should be readily available on required topics from the current publication to industry specific processes

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

The worldwide COMPASS system has been inevitable for the research and development processes

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

ExcellentThere has been limitations in the system (for varied individuals)

Developing knowledge management will help the Motorola to forecast strategic decisions

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

Implementing Knowledge management system in the research and development department will enthusiast the employees working on it.

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

How do you think having the previous examples and calibrated people’s experience will give great advantage for the emerging technology

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

Your personal knowledge or caliber (tacit knowledge) can be shared with the other internal or external employees (explicit knowledge)

20%

30%

50%

Major portion accepts that proper knowledge management will help in bringing up products that will become dominant designs. To learn the available technologies and the products in the market KM will be really helpful. Even the R&D project life span can be reduced with the help of a proper KM tool.

Questions

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

Q9

10%

90%

This exceptionally shows that putting tacit knowledge in an explicit format will help the learning process easy when it comes to learning about new technologies. The new model should cater this since the employees do believe in this.

Q10) Your personal knowledge (tacit knowledge) or caliber can be shared with the other internal or external employees (explicit knowledge)

Questions

N/A or U/K

Fair

Average

Moderate

Excellent

Q10

10%

60%

20%

10%

The KM model should entertain the employees to share their tacit knowledge to others. A collection of tacit knowledge of all the employees is indeed an asset for the organization. Motivating them to share their knowledge is something this new model should work on.

Conclusion

With the timeframe I spent for this Knowledge Management for the department of Research and Development, Motorola, Sri Lanka, gave a very broad opportunity to discover knowledge in the subject and all the relevant areas. All the data I derived in this research are deliberately searched and selected from the internal employees, relevant books and the other required sources.

Some of the results which were relevant been extracted from the group research we did for Motorola (Knowledge management for Motorola) and in this it has been specialized for R&D. From the day I started the research and the interviews and results I derived with it, I could see that the Motorola not only went through layoffs but also it did face some issues having its calibrated people with it. This has been a repeating hurdle for Motorola for many years.

Though, some of the questions brought up the negative reflection, and which describes the internal people (employees) do not want to share their knowledge with the online system, but on the flip side it also proves from the same set of people that the Knowledge Management system will significantly improve the market lead that the Motorola among the competitors. It also showed in another question that, majority of the people who answered have chosen that it will be excellent to use previous caliber of the people, being tacit or explicit would bring in more revenue with new technologies. And some of the results were hostile.

Further, the knowledge management implementation for Motorola should address these principles too; stand still in the organizations goals and strategies, providing search tools, build a supportive culture among the employees.

Nevertheless, there are obvious areas where the company will have to play to educate the employees for not only being self concerned, but also to help the others branches or the coping firms to study the technology what they are coming up with, this helps to roll out nothing but new technologies. Moreover, than having only couple of disagreements, the rest of all stays towards the agreements and excellence with the model I proposed and the system.

Bibliography

Nonaka, I. and Hirotaka, T. The Knowledge-Creating Company. New York: Oxford University Press (1995)

Knoig H. EIRMA Working Group 54 Report on Knowledge Management. September 1998

“Virtusa provides an amazing learning curve” , http://sundaytimes.lk/081123/Education/eu607.html

University of Motorola, http://www.slideshare.net/ganeshramb/motorola-university-presentation

Building Winning Product Development Teams (2003) Parametric Technology Corporation, Available: http://www.seedinnovation.org/WCMS/files/25870/en/25870en_file1.pdf Last accessed: 9th July, 2010.

Leonard-Barton, D (1992) Core capabilities and core rigidities: a paradox in managing new product development. Strategic Management Journal. 13 () 111-125.

Management Issues and Considerations (2007) AEW Services, Available: http://www.maxwideman.com/issacons3/iac1363/sld008.htm Last accessed: 10th June, 2010.

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