Technology Know-How Capture

Abstract

The thesis was ordered by Calculation & Simulation department of Wärtsilä Industrial Operations division. The need for the research rises from the challenges in documenting know-how related to structural analysis. The current method of documenting the know-how is using static Word documents and the goal is to find ways to improve the documenting methods so that the effort of documenting would be minimal but the captured know-how maximal.

The amount and quality of scientific research concerning knowledge management is relatively high but it is quite general in nature. Academic studies related to tacit knowledge documentation on the other hand is very scarce and hard to find. This caused the thesis to divide strongly into two parts: a general level theory part and more specific practical part.

The main research methods used were qualitative, semi structured interviews and brainstorming. The interviewees were handpicked to represent different points of view and expertise areas. The brainstorming was intended to get more people involved than just the interviewees and to let a wider group of people to give their opinions on relevant matters. An intranet surveys were used as a minor research method but this did not affect much to the actual thesis since the participation was quite small.

The results are mixture of the general level theories and more specific practical ideas and suggestions. A common thread to be found is that there is no simple or universal solution with capturing know-how. The more abstract information gets from data to knowledge and know-how the harder it gets to document. With the words of Dave Snowden: “We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down.” So being selective about what knowledge is moved through people and what knowledge is moved in documentation is the key.