ASPECTS OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT APPLIED IN ...

Annals of the University “Constantin Brâncuşi”of Tg-Jiu, No. 1/2008, Volume 2,
ISSN: 1842-4856
and tertiary communication protocols and will ease knowledge transportation. The ultimate goal of
laying out knowledge is to avoid gaps that force groups in the organization to operate in a vacuum
that doesn't allow them to consider information that exists in their midst. This leads to costly
duplication of efforts.
Knowledge transportation
Knowledge is abundant in almost all organizations. The main issue is how to get it from
producer to consumer.
Consider the issues when there is a lack of connection between people in an organization. It is not
uncommon to find the situation in which a U.S.-based marketing agent pitches a product that cannot
be feasibly built by the production staff in Asia. Why? Simply because the knowledge about system
design and development was not transported effectively and efficiently to the marketing agent.
Because global outsourcing is widespread, such blunders are common in information system
designs and maintenance engagements.
Another transportation problem exists in organizations when there is no clear protocol about
which medium should be used to transfer knowledge. Ad hoc and inconsistent approaches are
pervasive in organizations. Some knowledge gets transferred using computerized systems, some is
transferred via formal personal mechanisms such as training and job rotation, and some gets across
through informal personal mechanisms such as the grapevine. Most people are at a loss when it
comes to deciding which path to request knowledge from and which path should be used for
transmitting their own knowledge. The cost of confusion makes knowledge management inefficient
and highly unsuccessful in organizations.
An additional issue is that of timing. Should knowledge be pushed to individuals or should
they pull it from central sources? Disagreements or lack of clear protocols will result in either
famine or abundance, neither of which is optimal. In every organization, some knowledge is
ignored because there is no agreement on the path, medium, and timing of transfer.
IEs have training in logistics and scheduling problems; much of it is applied to movement of
digital goods and the scheduling of jobs on factory floors. These insights can be brought to bear on
the knowledge transportation problem. IEs can aid an organization by studying the routing and
movement of knowledge to determine the efficient mechanisms for connecting people.
While striving for efficiency, we can't forget effectiveness, which is critical in designing for
redundancy What happens if a knowledge communication path breaks? What will be the alternative
route? Knowledge about scheduling will also be salient. The IE literature is abundant in scheduling
algorithms based on the characteristics of goods and the environment, it is unwise to transport
perishable goods by land or sea unless the source of such produce is in close proximity. Similarly,
certain types of knowledge need to be transported quickly, while others can wait. The study of these
dynamics will uncover useful suggestions about how to design appropriate mediums and timing
schemes for knowledge transfer.
Knowledge maintenance
Most often, a knowledge management system is developed and then left alone. This leads
to the system going astray and eventually becoming unusable. When a corporate intranet portal is
commissioned, for example, knowledge nuggets are properly classified, efficient search
mechanisms are put in place, and the system is usable. As time passes, the system degrades into a
state of disorganization. Knowledge nuggets get thrown into the wrong places and are classified
improperly. Several versions of the same knowledge object reside in the repository. If the material
captured is factually sound and relevant, no rigorous checking takes place on information posted to
the system. As a result, there is continuous error correcting and knowledge updating.
109