A knowledge sharing framework for improving the testing processes in global product development

In new product development, knowledge is the key to innovation. In order to remain competitive in today’s engineering world, knowledge is a crucial asset for organisations that enable them to gain a sustainable competitive edge. An extensive industrial investigation has been conducted in this project to bring out real industrial requirements in the product development and testing context within the collaborating company. Based on the industrial investigation and literature survey, the research direction is identified, i.e., to develop methodologies to capture and share testing related knowledge to address the special nature and application context of the integrated global product development and testing operations of multi-national companies. Currently, engineering companies are still mainly using traditional information systems with structured databases such as computer aided engineering, enterprise resource planning and product lifecycle management systems. This project explores whether the fast developing social media tools are capable of facilitating the capture and sharing of employee knowledge, especially tacit and un-structured knowledge, and addressing the social aspects of knowledge management. The project also explores the benefit of using a knowledge framework that is directly driven by the knowledge users by providing both knowledge content and how it is structured, rather than relying on the role of knowledge administrators. The developed methodology with social media, video sharing and storytelling techniques would substantially enhance and extend the capabilities of traditional engineering knowledge management tools, by providing the ability to quickly browse and absorb user-contributed testing knowledge, like lessons learned, suggested product improvement or process training material, and identify specific knowledge experts within an global organisation. A comprehensive case study has been conducted within the collaborating company to validate the usefulness and effectiveness of the developed methodology. While keeping the collaborating company’s requirements in mind during the research, the developed methodology and tools can also be applied in other product development and engineering business environments as an enabling tool to promote collaboration, learning and knowledge sharing in global operations.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Greenwich

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Zammit, Joseph Paul

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Gao, Xiaoyu (James)
• Evans, Richard

• TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)

Language dc:language

en