CAN SHARED KNOWLEDGE BASES SUPPORT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN CONSTRUCTION?

Construction companies all over the world are increasingly being challenged by high cost pressure, shortened project cycles and increasing competition. Within a business environment, where the fast and reliable access to knowledge is a key success factor, an efficient handling of the organizational knowledge is crucial. Knowledge management has appeared on the business scene and is capturing the attention of business. Knowledge management is the formal management of knowledge for facilitating creation, access, and reuse of knowledge, using advanced technology. Knowledge bases provide technology to organize, represent, capture and maintain the content of the knowledge management systems. Sound knowledge management systems employ a wide range of knowledge bases. This paper identifies the main knowledge management processes and supporting technologies within a construction organization based on three case studies. It looks at the way knowledge bases interact to form effective knowledge management systems