Classification of tools and methods for knowledge management in product development

Abstract

"Der Fortschritt lebt vom Austausch des Wissens" (Progress is based on the exchange of knowledge - Albert Einstein), is only one of many famous sayings that underline the importance of knowledge. [Vajna et. al. 2001] quote a statement from 1907 saying that besides dedicated employees the application of knowledge had already been one of the most decisive factors of success for companies that time. This is more applied to our, by globalization characterised, time. A neglect of existing potentials of the employees' knowledge has negative impacts on product development [Krause et. al. 2007]. That is why the missing accessibility of personal knowledge to the company and its employees leads to wasting in the company in the form of redundant developments or dissimilar decisions [Probst et. al. 2006]. Only a structured and systematic management of knowledge resources enables a company to benefit from yet unused personal knowledge [Krause et. al. 2007] and, thus, to positively influence the main targets cost, time and quality [Klabunde 2003]. Recently, a huge number of innovative knowledge management methods and tools have been developed, but only few of them have been applied. Problems that hinder the application of those methods and tools have been discussed by [Klabunde 2003]. Among these is also the limited usage of the tools due to missing knowledge about the usage. The aim of this paper is to combine knowledge management tools and methods with product development. The method to do this is to consider the knowledge management blocks according to Probst [Probst et.al. 2006], deriving from the area of business administration, in the context of the product development process according to VDI 2221 [VDI 1993]. Based on this consideration, the goal of this contribution is to identify and propose existing solutions for knowledge management in the different phases of product development.