Design knowledge is distributed unevenly across organizational boundaries within large enterprises. Within this context, there are two main barriers to quick and reliable knowledge flow. The first is the organizational boundaries which will influence the efficiency of new design knowledge flow from when and where it is located to when and where it is need for application. The second is that one organization or sub-company of the same large enterprise often knows little about what kind of design knowledge or capability another one has. These barriers will prevent the flow of knowledge. Therefore, there is a need to develop methods and tools to improve the performance of knowledge flow within large enterprises. This paper first presents a brief introduction to the context and background information of our knowledge flow management practice in a large enterprise. Then the definition of key elements of design knowledge flow are introduced and analyzed. After that, we propose a service-based framework for the management of design knowledge flow; this framework focuses on organizing knowledge providers and developing a knowledge service platform. The proposed approach was primarily validated and verified in a large construction machinery enterprise. In addition, future work on improving the approach to knowledge flow management is also briefly discussed.
Knowledge Flow and Capacity Development: An Introduction to the Special Issue