BCIS 401 Information Systems for Management

Knowledge Management

Dr. J. Affisco

Fall 2001

Why Knowledge Management?

• Knowledge is the property of the individual

• Successful practices rarely transferable

• Knowledge is embedded and hard to extract– Large amounts of time spent “reinventing the

wheel”

Why Knowledge Management?• Fortune 500 companies wasted $12 billion in

1999 as employees duplicated one another’s work

• 90% of 800 North American and European Companies were working on some aspect of knowledge management

• Ford estimated that in 1997-99 knowledge management initiatives resulted in cost savings or additional revenues of $914 million

Why Knowledge Management?• Chevron estimates it has saved more than $650

million since 1991 by sharing best practices among mangers in charge of energy use at its oil refineries

• Texas Instruments reports savings of more than $1 billion by disseminating best practices throughout its 13 semiconductor plants

• By late 1999 1/3 of top 1,000 largest U.S. companies had begun knowledge mgt. initiatives; by 2003 more than half will have done so.

BCIS 401 5

Types of Knowledge

• Explicit Knowledge– Easily collected and organized– Transferred through digital means

• Tacit Knowledge– Personal context-specific– Process knowledge– Hard to formalize and communicate

Knowledge Management Strategies

• Sets forth criteria for choosing– What knowledge a firm plans to pursue

– How firm will capture and share it

• Generally determined through strategic audit– What sorts of knowledge are critical to support

business positioning

– Who needs to have what information?

– When do they need to know it?

BCIS 401 7

Knowledge Management Processes

• Generating

• Organizing

• Developing

• Distributing

BCIS 401 8

Generating

• Identifying the desired content

• Getting people to contribute ideas– On-line discussions– Submitting deliverables that have emerged

from other work

BCIS 401 9

Generating

• Buy or Rent

• Research and Development

• Shared Problem Solving

• Adaptation

• Communities of Practice

BCIS 401 10

Organizing

• Organizing collected data so it can be represented and retrieved electronically

• Knowledge sharing systems or tools– Knowledge bases– Navigational devices– User interfaces– Taxonomies

BCIS 401 11

Organizing - Knowledge Bases

• Unfiltered– Archive documents directly– Many-to-many communication without

intervention by others

• Filtered– Content screened, distilled, and approved for use

by recognized experts– Material continually refreshed to maintain its

currency

BCIS 401 12

Developing

• Selection and further refinement of material to increase its value for users

• Subject matter experts review work done by others such as editors

• Results include– Final content/form of expert material– Knowledge objects

Distributing• How people get access to material• User friendliness• Encouraging use and reuse of knowledge• Types of systems

– Push - Sends large masses of information out to users– Pull - Users call on the knowledge base to draw

material out– Targeted Push - Proactively deliver material that is

context sensitive

BCIS 401 14

Types of Decision Support

• Decision Support Systems

• Expert Systems/Knowledge Based DSS

• Group Decision Support Systems

• Executive Support Systems

Decision Support Systems

BCIS 401 16

Phases of Decision Making Process

• Intelligence

• Design

• Choice

BCIS 401 17

Intelligence

• Searching the environment for conditions

calling for decisions

• Raw data are obtained, processed, &

examined for clues that may identify

problems.

BCIS 401 18

Design

• Inventing, developing, & analyzing possible

courses of action.

• This involves processes to– Understand the problem– Generate solutions– Test solutions for feasibility

BCIS 401 19

Choice

• Selecting a particular course of action from

those available

• A choice is made and implemented

Levels of Org Decision MakingInformation Characteristics

Task Variable Strat. Plan. Mgt. Control Operational Control

Accuracy Low High

Level of Detail Aggregate Detailed

Time Horizon Future Present

Frequency of Use Infrequent Frequent

Source External Internal

Scope of Info. Wide Narrow

Type of Info Qualitative Quantitative

Age of Info. Older Current

A MIS/DSS Framework

Type ofDecisionTask

OperationalControl

ManagerialControl

StrategicPlanning

SystemsSupport

StructuredInventoryReordering

Pdn.PlanningUsing LP

PlantLocation

TPS, EDP,MS Model MIS

Semi-Structured

BondTrading

SettingMktg.Budgets

CapitalAcquisitionAnalysis

DecisionSupportSystems

Un-Structured

Selecting acover formagazine.

HiringManagers

R&DPortfolioDevelop.

KBDSSESEIS

Specific DSS

DSS Generator

DSS Tools

Three DSS Levels

Specific DSS

DSS Generator

DSS Tools

Manager (user)

DSS Builder

Toolsmith

Intermediary

Technical Supporter

Relating DSS Levels and Roles

Data Base Model Base

DBMS MBMS

DGMS

User

DSS

Task Environment

DSS Components

DSS Development ProcessDSS Development Process

Builder and User agree on small significant sub- problem.

Design and develop an initial system to support decision making required by sub-problem.

Use the system for a short period of time.

Evaluate the system. Modify the system. Incrementally expand the system.

Systems Development Process

• Analysis - What application is to be supported?

• Design - What is the best way to support application?

• Construction - Build the designed system.

• Implementation - Apply the system.

Expert Systems

BCIS 401 27

Definition

Expert Systems are special-purpose computer

programs which use knowledge and reasoning

to perform complex tasks in a specific problem

domain at a level of performance usually

associated with an expert in the domain.

BCIS 401 28

Purpose

• Originally designed to replace domain

experts.

• Today viewed as Knowledge-based Decision Support Systems– System supports Managerial Decision Making

with the capability to process knowledge in addition to quantitative data.

BCIS 401 29

Components of ES

• Knowledge Base

• Inference Engine

• User Interface

Expert Systems Architecture

Inference Engine

- Forw ard Chaining- Backw ard Chaining

Know ledge Base- Facts- Rules

- Fram es

UserInterface

User

BCIS 401 31

Knowledge Base

• Repository of domain-specific knowledge • Knowledge needs to be represented and

employed in a form that can be used for reasoning.

• Knowledge structures– Facts– Rules– Frames

BCIS 401 32

Facts

• General statements of truth that may be

either temporary or permanent knowledge

Rules

• Knowledge structure of the form “if-then”

• The “if statement” represents a premise.

• The “then statement” represents a conclusion.

• As rules are processed, if the premise is true then the conclusion indicates some action to be taken.

• A rule is proved when the premise of the rule matches known facts.

BCIS 401 34

Frames

• A way of packaging knowledge about one

object.

• Are composed of slots in which data or characteristics associated with specific objects are stored.

• Frames are organized in a hierarchy which allows for sharing of knowledge through the property of heredity.

BCIS 401 35

Rules vs Frames

• Frames are especially efficient for

packaging knowledge and handling the

storage and retrieval of that knowledge.

• Rules work best at making deductions.

Inference Engine

• Its task is to process the domain knowledge contained in the knowledge base to arrive at a solution to the problem.

• Inference engine combines facts and rules through an inference process to arrive at conclusions.

• Inference techniques– Forward chaining– Backward chaining

Forward Chaining• Begins with known facts and the rule set and attempts

to deduce new facts which may eventually lead to the deduction of the goal.

• Inference engine cycles through the rules until one is found whose premises matches a fact. This rule is then proved or fired, and the conclusion is added to the fact base.

• Process continues until the implication of the conclusions reached are sufficient to provide a solution.

BCIS 401 38

Backward Chaining

• Inference processes work backwards from the goal.

• Inference takes the goal as a hypothesis and then seeks to prove a series of subgoals working backward from the goal.

• This is done recursively until all subgoals that are required for the goal’s existence are proven.

Group Decision Support Systems

BCIS 401 40

GROUP DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM

(GDSS)

INTERACTIVE COMPUTER-BASED

SYSTEM FACILITATES SOLUTION OF

UNSTRUCTURED PROBLEMS BY

DECISION MAKERS WORKING AS

GROUP

*

BCIS 401 41

TOOLS OF GDSS

• ELECTRONIC QUESTIONNAIRES

• ELECTRONIC BRAINSTORMING

• IDEA ORGANIZERS

• QUESTIONNAIRE TOOLS

• TOOLS FOR VOTING, SETTING PRIORITIES

*

BCIS 401 42

TOOLS OF GDSS

• STAKEHOLDER IDENTIFICATION &

ANALYSIS TOOLS

• POLICY FORMATION TOOLS

• GROUP DICTIONARIES

*

BCIS 401 43

ELECTRONIC MEETING SYSTEM (EMS)

COLLABORATIVE GDSS USES

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO

MAKE GROUP MEETINGS MORE

PRODUCTIVE FACILITATES

COMMUNICATION DECISION MAKING

*

BCIS 401 44

• IMPROVED PRE-PLANNING

• INCREASED PARTICIPATION• OPEN, COLLABORATIVE ATMOSPHERE

• IDEA GENERATION FREE OF CRITICISM

• EVALUATION OBJECTIVITY

• IDEA ORGANIZATION & EVALUATION

*

HOW GDSS ENHANCED DECISION MAKING

BCIS 401 45

• SETTING PRIORITIES & DECISION MAKING

• DOCUMENTATION OF MEETINGS

• ACCESS TO EXTERNAL INFORMATION

• PRESERVATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL

MEMORY

*

HOW GDSS ENHANCED DECISION MAKING

An Illustration of the Use of GDSS

BCIS 401 47

The Problem

• Plant Location– In practice, a cross-functional team of senior

executives typically makes plant location decisions.

– In arriving at this decision the team looks at a number of conflicting variables and factors, both quantitative and qualitative.

BCIS 401 48

The Objective

• To provide training for executives in plant

location strategic decision making so as to

improve their performance when faced with

such a decision.

BCIS 401 49

The Scenario

• A general scenario describing the industry,

competitive environment, government and

legal environment, and position of various

other stakeholders is provided prior to the

group support sessions.

• The exercise proceeds in two phases

Phase I• The executive group is broken into three role

playing groups– Corporate management

– State and local government

– Environmental stakeholders

• A more specific scenario in terms of the firm’s products and processes is distributed with instructions to read it from the point of view of their role playing group.

Phase I - Individual GSS Sessions

• Electronic brainstorming is used to help the participants develop ideas about the plant location problem from their respective role’s point of view.

• Idea organizer is used to help crystallize the ideas already generated into a set of critical issues for each of the three constituencies.

• Vote then is used by to prioritize the critical issues previously developed.

Phase I - Individual GSS Sessions

• The group is given information on three potential location sites and are then asked to evaluate the sites based on the critical issues they developed.

• The alternative evaluation tool is used to help rank order the competing location sites. However, the ranking is not revealed to the participants at this point.

• A transcript of the sessions is used to help debrief the groups on the decision making process as well as the decision content.

Phase II - Metagroup GSS Session

• The sets of critical issues identified, in the earlier sessions, by the groups representing the three constituencies are discussed.

• The stakeholder identification tool helps the group to analyze the impact of policies relating to the critical issues on the stakeholders.

• The policy formulation tool is used to facilitate the arrival at a consensus on which issues remain critical to the group.

Phase II - Metagroup GSS Session

• Vote may be used once again to arrive at a final prioritization.

• Having achieved this understanding of their position on the critical plant location factors, the metagroup is now given the information on the same three sites as during the individual group sessions.

• Using the appropriate tools, the metagroup is asked, for a second time, to rank order the alternatives. This time they are given the final ranking.

Phase II - Metagroup GSS Session

• In addition, at this time they are given the final ranking which resulted from each of the individual group decision sessions.

• A comparison of these rankings is used to fuel the debriefing discussion. As part of the debriefing we can compare the processes and results of the individual groups with those of the metagroup.

• A discussion of expectations versus reality is generally useful.