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Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management Case Study
Initial situation/Preliminary considerations
Our client is a port with around 100 employees in northern Germany and an above-average degree of automation. The operational areas of the company are divided into the Technology and Operations departments. While Operations ensures the smooth running of logistics, Technology takes care of maintenance and new construction projects. As the head of the Operations department is due to retire, it was determined in the course of a detailed suitability analysis (link) that it would be most efficient to merge the two departments and unite them under the Head of Technology, who we successfully appointed a few years ago.
The change process of transitioning to a department is a challenge for the team there, which is to be accompanied by Gebrüder Schwanke personnel consulting. The company consists of three employees and the retiring head of the department. The fear that each of the three employees in the company only has partial knowledge and that a large part of the know-how lies with the head of department also indicates the need to establish a knowledge management system for the management.
To this end, Gebrüder Schwanke is developing a concept to ensure that all processes are reviewed through individual interviews and that all information is then recorded digitally. Parallel to knowledge management, a coaching concept is developed with our cooperating psychologist. It is important to ensure a balanced relationship between the operations and technology departments and to integrate the management into the transition process. This process is supervised solely by our qualified psychologist.
Implementation/Project process
As part of the preparations, the consultants once again get a complete overview of the facilities at the port and how they work.
1st Interview Team
First, the three-person team from the operations department is interviewed and the entire process flows are analyzed. The future head of department is also present to ask questions. The logistical process is dissected in detail, starting with the planning of the ships in the future, through to the final departure from the port and possible reworking. It is important to determine whether the colleagues can close any gaps together and how many questions remain unanswered at the end. These open questions are collected first. During the entire process, the knowledge is transferred to a document in real time, provided with headings and pre-structured. It quickly becomes clear that the employees involved already have a great deal of knowledge about all the processes.
A total of around 25 questions will be developed. In addition, three Excel tables are created, one containing a contact database with all external contacts, another with a list of all materials handled at the port and their nature and properties. The third list contains the crane systems used and their specific technical parameters.
During the interview, it is always important to prevent the explanations from becoming too detailed and to maintain a clear structure. After the interview, which lasts several hours, the recordings are corrected and edited.
Procedure: Knowledge Management
1st Interview with the Team
2nd Interview Supervisor
3. Digitization
Service Knowledge Management
Demographic change and automation go hand in hand with the loss of specialist knowledge. Older employees often leave the company or jobs are replaced by electronic systems.
In most cases, it is not the day-to-day operational knowledge that is then missing, but rather, for example, specialist knowledge that is required when systems fail, a special, rare product is delivered or just dealing with a few external contacts with whom you rarely have contact.
2. Interview with the Head of Department
The head of department is then interviewed. The future job holder is also present at this appointment. To ensure that no further information is missing in addition to the approx. 25 questions recorded, the entire process is run through again. To ensure interaction, one of the three employees is always present and accompanies the respective questions and processes in his or her area of focus. In the interview, further facts are added and many things are specified, and open questions are answered. A lot of information is obtained from the dialog between the department employees and the head of department. The Excel tables are filled in and completed by the head of department himself. The information received is processed and checked again and details are added.
3. Digitization
The information is now already available in digital form and only needs to be sufficiently specified and cataloged. Our customer decides to take over this process himself and transfer the information into an MS One Note document according to the structure developed. The structure maps the individual process flows and divides them into sub-items with individual information. In addition, references are repeatedly made to external and internal contacts and technical details are explained.