KMS in Albion

Company Strategy
Albion Fabric's strategy is to have low margins/cost and high volume
Dedicated sales team per customer.

Albion Fabric has five teams, each focussed on a single customer, staff turnover is high, which reflects low staff morale. There is little training and knowledge learnt on the job is lost due to staff departures. Each team focuses on a client with different business needs and concentrate on achieving sales targets. Knowledge learnt is not transferred across teams.


Challenge
Inadequate or non-existent staff training is a current problem facing Albion Fabric Limited as an organization. The current challenge is such that the organization has not adequately trained staff due to unlimited resources to include; time, staff and money. To this end staff are ill-equipped to deal effectively with clients or suppliers as very little or no knowledge is not being captured, stored and transferred as staff are very busy trying to meet targets with existing clients. Staff are leaving and taking their knowledge with them
The use of knowledge management systems (KMS) can be introduced to Albion to enable the organization to process information, store and manage knowledge thereby helping to stay afloat and in some cases gain and maintain competitive advantage (Turban et al, 2006)

Resolution
MacSweeney (2002) suggests that the focus of a knowledge strategy can either be inward or outward, either way the strategy should not be Information Technology (IT) driven but IT can support a strategy. He further purports that to have a successful KM strategy, the business community has to be involved from the inception and sponsorship from business executives is essential.

To this end, the focus should be inwards and management could look at providing online training for existing and new staff. This could help counter the problem of high staff turnover, helping stop the brain drain. This would also be advantageous to the company as learning can be shared across teams, bringing new staff up to speed on the processes of the organization and suppliers, which the staff will need to interact with.

Online training is also available to existing staff on areas that require skills update an areas relevant to their roles. It can also be utilized by the organization to cross train other employees in the areas their colleagues are working in to fill any skill gap should any employee be absent due to sickness or leave.

Knowledge based system can also be an essential tool for staff at Albion. Knowledge captured from experts such as design technologists or designers can be stored captured in a knowledge based system. This can be implemented utilizing the company’s portal or intranet. A simple search facility can be implemented within the portal that links to repositories such as Microsoft Word and Excel stored in a file structure such as Windows Explorer. The user logs onto the portal and types in word or title of a document or process and the document is made available to them on the portal.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) made available on the company’s intranet is another solution that may be cost effective and enable Albion staff to save time on finding out about topic that may be vital to the success particular meetings with clients.

The new knowledge management model can be adopted in implementing a knowledge management system in Albion as suggested by Sagsan (2006) as it covers the relevant stages of knowledge creating, sharing, structuring, using and auditing. The model works hierarchically in that one phase e.g. knowledge creating would successfully complete before going onto the next stage. Sagsan (2006) further suggests that as implementation of KM can be a daunting task the new KM model helps in breaking down the tasks into hierarchies which makes the task seem smaller.

Knowledge can be created in Albion through group or team discussions and meetings. On completion of the knowledge creating phase, sharing knowledge can be achieved by introducing team building exercises, discussions over lunch, via emails and by management encouraging a knowledge sharing culture. The structuring may take the form of information storing. In Albion this could possibly be by the use of windows explorer used as a repository and retrieved via the search facility on the intranet. The introductions of the system i.e. search facility and FAQs will facilitate the knowledge using phase though the knowledge auditing may need to be introduced by the sponsor of KM implementation to enable the measurement of intellectual capital and to take account of knowledge assets within the organization. Then the process of creating knowledge will start over (Sagsan, 2006).

Below is a diagram of the KM model:

Fig1 Knowledge Management Lifecycle Model (Sagsan, 2006)

http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/1/22/2280049/kmlcmodel.JPG

Outcome

Employees are more confident in their competence to carry out work effectively and efficiently in their use of scarce resources by the use of knowledge supported by information systems.

The intranet becomes a part of the organizations process. Buyers and garment technologists are educated within Albion about with the use of the internet, which is access controlled

Time is saved trying to locate relevant information and bringing staff up to speed with the organizational processes.


Reference:

Turban E., Leidner D., McLean E, Wetherbe J.,. (2006). Information Technology for Management: Transforming organizations in the Digital Economy (5th Edition) p366

Laudon, K., Laudon, J. (2006). Management Information Systems: Manging the Digital Firm (10th Edition) p434

MacSweeney G., (2002). The Knowledge Management Payback. Insurance and Technology May 6, 2002

Sagsan M., (2006). A New Lifecycle Model for Processing of Knowledge Management. 2nd International Conference on Business, Management and Economics, Izmir


Laudon, K., Laudon, J. (2006). Management Information Systems: Manging the Digital Firm (10th Edition) p434

MacSweeney G., (2002). The Knowledge Management Payback. Insurance and Technology May 6, 2002

Sagsan M., (2006). A New Lifecycle Model for Processing of Knowledge Management. 2nd International Conference on Business, Management and Economics, Izmir