Information and Knowledge Management System

ASSIGNMENT 1

PART A

Q1 Key forms of knowledge that creates and share by KCA

Kimberly- Clark Australia (KCA) is the leading brand that manufactures and sells family, health, personal care products. Currently, cited firm is facing high competition which has forced entity to improve and upgrade its technologies in the business operations. To survive in the market, key forms of knowledge that created and shared by KCA are as following:

Manufacturing knowledge: KCA creates knowledge regarding patent, licenses, technologies, innovative products which help the organization to operate business smoothly. Innovative process of manufacturing can help the cited firm in gaining competitive advantage.

Marketing knowledge: KCA creates information about its top competitors, their strategies, consumers and their preferences so that it can formulate its own strategies for being in the competition. These information supports in increasing demand of the products of the organization (Dagenais and et.al, 2016)

Sales knowledge: KCA creates and shares information about customer relationship management, current market position, customers need and preferences so that sales persons can communicate with the consumers effectively and can enhance sales of the organization.

Corporate knowledge: In this session, KCA shares the detail about the financial performance of the organization, HR, management information so that they can identify drawbacks of current process and further can formulate strategies to improve performance of the organization (Coffey, 2015).

To operate business effectively, KCA is creating knowledge about the imports, R & D activities so that it can develop innovative products for satisfying the consumers. Another key form of knowledge that KCA creates is information about the local market, competitors, consumer preferences, their needs which assists to give shape to its business. With the help of R & D, resource detail, KCA can minimize the issues such as wastage, land care, sustainability etc.

Knowledge sharing is essential for the growth of KCA. It implements internal and external sharing of information. Internal sharing of data about consumer preferences assist sales persons to build strong relationship with the users. It is beneficial in increasing the number of sales of the products of cited firm. External sharing can help in enhancing demand of the health care products of KCA. Cited firm is sharing information of cross divisions that supports higher authorities to take necessary actions such as training etc. so that it can enhance knowledge of workers and further it will help in improving performance of the organization.

Q2 Bench-making process of KCA

Bench-marking is the process that increases production efficiency and raise brand name of the organization. KCA sets its performance benchmark against its 180 corresponding plants across the world. Bench marking process of KCA involves:

• It has access to a consolidated data base in which KCA collects detail about equipments and compare it with other plants. Common presentation process is implemented by KCA in which KCC main office pay focus on standardization and reporting mechanism for each KCA plant.
• Common performance management is another process of benchmarking in the cited firm. It set its standards on the bases of wastage, speed etc. and accordingly it measures the efficiency.
• Each plant of KCA regularly enters its performance data and at the end of each month office compare performances with other plants.

Benchmarking helps to change the cultural of the KCA, as operation manager of the cited firm has noticed in the initial program that there are lot of possibility of improvement. The aim of the organization is to improve process, increase transparency and utilize the shop floor production process effectively. Benchmarking has forced the management to spend amount and time in gaining knowledge about all areas. Due to this, communication has been increased in the workplace. Apart from this, managers are taking feedback from the customers so that they can build relationship with them. It has made culture of the organization friendly and now people feel satisfy in the workplace and put their best efforts for accomplishing goal of the entity.

Q3 Importance of constantly creating and sharing knowledge in KCA

Constantly sharing and creating knowledge is important for KCA as it helps in building enduring relationship with the staff members. Sharing knowledge supports the sales persons in knowing about the trends and current market requirements. This supports them in communicating effectively with the consumers. Further, KCA provides health and personal care products to consumers, with the help of knowledge sharing and creating cited firm can get innovative ideas which can help in improving its efficiency. Wastage can be minimized with the help of this sharing. It assists in improving practices of the company and good practices supports firm to remain in the leading position in the corporate market. Knowledge sharing is also important for KCA in improving manufacturing process of the plants. In addition to this, it aids to increase communication flow in the workplace which reduces the conflicts to a great extent.

Q4 KCA's syndicate team approach and its benefits

Syndicate team approach of KCA is effective in which cited firm comprises of workers from different divisions. The syndicate team approach program assists the organization in sharing information (Jordan and Russel, 2014). This team focuses on problems and identifies the practical solutions.

Benefits:

• If helps to utilize the training benefits immediately in the real workplace.
• Participate approach is the major benefit of syndicate team approach which helps to enhance coordination among employees.
• Provides immediate solutions of the work based problems.

Q5 Strength and weakness of the system

Strength and weakness of KM are describes as following:

Strength:

• Multiple practice and process is effective in improving efficiency and helps to increase demand of the products of KCA.
• Its main strength is that it is useful for the sales growth and it supports sales persons in knowing perception of consumers by this way they will be able to serve them better. With the help of KM, KCA will be able to break its monthly sales records.
• It is cost saving tool and can enhance efficiency of the production process.
• It enhances satisfaction of workers thus, job turnover get reduced in KCA to a great extent.

Weakness:

• KCA has to depend upon the knowledge contributors.
• Due to lack of understanding, it can create confusion in KCA between employees and managers.
• Information sharing can create big problem of data leakage.
• If firm fails to handle information well then it can be great loss of time, money for the KCA

PART B

Knowledge management Plan

The present report has discussed about knowledge management plan. It has analyzed that how KCM can be beneficial in reducing the work based problems. Study has covered the process of knowledge creation, harnessing and sharing and its process have been illustrated in this report.

Aims and Objectives

The main aim of developing knowledge in KCA is to gain the competitive advantage and to create unique image of the organization in front of consumers.
Need for knowledge Management

It helps entities in developing mechanism of storing the effective information which can be useful in the future for the development of the firm.

Knowledge creation

Its a systematic process of converting useful data into meaningful information for the welfare of the corporations. In the absence of KM companies can not accomplish its objective easily so for achieving the goal of the KCA it is very essential.

Knowledge harnessing and sharing

KM is the continuous process in which data is collected from internal and external environment. Harnessing and sharing both are interlinked parts. Knowledge can be used by developing a system of storing and by implementing this into real practical workplace environment of KCA.

Knowledge Management process

• Discovering related data by internal and external environment through research and observations.
• Once management team of KCA get the information then it is essential to check its applicability and benefits to the organization.
• In the next phase managers of cited firm has to share this information with employees, customers, suppliers and rest other stakeholders.
• In the last phase managers of KCA have to reuse this information so that problems can be abolish, in case if still issues are taking place then they can take effective decisions to resolve issues of the workplace.

Employees learning, development needs and plan

To accomplish the goal of the KCA it is very important for the top management to identify the learning and development needs of its staff members. Higher authorities are required to evaluate the performance of its each employees and analyses the gap between required and current performance as per the business needs. By this way managers will be able to formulate the mechanism which can help in fulfilling this gap. Once management of KCA find the gap then they can formulate comprehensive plan such as training or development programs which can help to enhance knowledge and efficiency of the workers (Dhuieb and et.al, 2015).

Resources of KM

Some important resources of KM are as following:

• Story telling
• Mentoring
• Upgraded Training
• Cross-division project team

Constraints and contingency measures

In the highly competitive environment organizations have to update the knowledge immediately so that it can perform better and can match with the current environment. But constraints may take place any time thus, to manage this, managers can implement extensive research activities. This would help in forecasting the future issues so KCA will be able to make plan to reduce critical situations (Ismail and Ahmad, 2015). Apart from this implementation of innovative solutions, use of upgraded technologies can help to sustain in such crucial competitive environment.

Evaluation

Organizations can evaluate the KM by comparing the effectiveness of current system against company's main objectives. Apart from this by looking upon the improvement in performance of workers its effectiveness can be evaluated. By examine outcome of each activity such as HR, sales etc. against standards or benchmark can help in evaluating the actual effectiveness of knowledge management system (Coffey, 2015).

ASSIGNMENT 2

Q1 Concept of KM

Knowledge management is the systematic process that supports to address the risks of the firms and find out the solutions for minimizing such issues of the organizations. It works for creating, sharing, customizing the data in such manner so that it can be useful for the entities.

Q2 List of legislation, codes of practice and national standard related to KM

There are number of legislation and code of practices those are related with the KM and influence it.

• Privacy Act 1988, Privacy regulation 2013
• Freedom of information Act 1982
• Archives Act 1983
• public service regulation 1999
• Fair work act 2009
• Evidence Act 1995
• Electric transactions act 1999 and 2000
• ISO 15489 Record management
• As / NZS ISO 16175 principal and functions
• Record keeping standards of government

Q3 key benefits of KM

Three key benefits of knowledge Management are as following:

• It helps to take effective, speedy decisions in the organizations.
• It is beneficial in reducing work based repeated mistakes.
• Enhances communication process of entities (Ismail and Ahmad, 2015).

Q4 Barriers to knowledge sharing

Five barriers of knowledge sharing are as following:

• Time is the major barrier, due to this managers of KCA feel unable to share information effectively with employees.
• Lack of awareness is another obstacle, most of the people are not aware with the importance of this information, by this way sharing can not done effectively.
• Lack of coordination and communication is major barrier due to this sharing can not be done properly.
• Fear of loosing position is one of the main obstacle that minimize the scope of sharing the knowledge.
• Fear of facing loss or harm to business image is major barrier and due to this information sharing scope get minimized.

Q5 Australian Standard for Knowledge

Key Australian standards is AS5037-2005. Features of this standards are as following:

• It describes indicator's list so that information can reused effectively and organization can maintain standards.
• It gives guidelines for bench-making.
• It defines the concept of efficiency.

CONCLUSION

From the above report it can be concluded that knowledge management is an important part of organizations, it helps to accomplish the objective of the firms. With the help of KM company's can forecast the problems can make strategies to minimize such risks. It assists in increasing the performance of the firms and raising standards of the products.

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REFERENCES

• Ahmad, N. L. and et.al., 2016. Examining the Demand for Green Events to Promote Sustainable Practices in Tourism: A Concept Paper. Advanced Science Letters.
• Bertoni, M., Bertoni, A. and Isaksson, O., 2016. Evoke: A value-driven concept selection method for early system design. Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering.
• Coffey, J. W., 2015. Concept Mapping and Knowledge Modeling: A Multi-Disciplinary Educational, Informational, and Communication Technology.Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics.
• Dagenais, C. and et.al., 2016. Using concept mapping to identify conditions that foster knowledge translation from the perspective of school practitioners.Research Evaluation.
• Dhuieb, M. A. and et.al., 2015. Conceptual framework for enhancing knowledge reuse in PLM environment with the concept of digital factory assistant. International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management.
• Ismail, S. and Ahmad, M. S., 2015, August. Deploying the concept of agent-mediated knowledge management in mobile apps for collective decision making. In Agents, Multi-Agent Systems and Robotics (
• Jordan, A. and Russel, D., 2014. Embedding the concept of ecosystem services? The utilisation of ecological knowledge in different policy venues.Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy.

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