4.3.3 Sources of knowledge

In product development, there is a continuous development of knowledge:

    past knowledge present knowledge future knowledge

There is recognition of the past knowledge which needs to be kept either in a company's memory or in its databases - it is unrewarding to keep 're-inventing the wheel'. One must not cling to the old knowledge as sacrosanct, but as a building base for the present and the future. At the beginning of the product development project, one is judging the knowledge available at present and assessing this against the knowledge required throughout the project.



The knowledge already inside the company is the first type to consider. Basically this is inside the heads of individuals, but together it becomes the total company knowledge if the knowledge is shared. In every company, there are individuals and groups who may not share knowledge easily so that a system has to be set up to ensure sharing of the combined company knowledge for a project. In incremental product development, as much as 90% of the knowledge required is already available inside the company if there is knowledge sharing. In product innovation, the present knowledge may be as little as 40% of the knowledge required - if any less, then warning bells should sound for the project.

Knowledge can be created from information inside the company - in the files, databases, library and information system. An important information source within the company is staff personal records; people often record detailed information, which is condensed in reports or even not reported. Some information may not have been significant in one project, but is in a later project. Some companies try to collect this into a central computer system, but even then it may be difficult to retrieve the information without the individual's inter- pretation of it. Within the company it is always difficult to balance the costs and usefulness of stored information. Between the two extremes of 'wiping the slate clean' and 'paralysis by information and analysis', there is a balance for every company that depends on the knowledge level of their staff and the costs of storing information. One persistent problem is to ensure systems are in place to record all significant data and events.

The company's capabilities or expertise can be described as a combination of the company knowledge, the company skills and the availability and relevance of the company information, as shown in Fig. 4.6.

P is personal knowledge, in people's heads; and personal skills.

Fig. 4.6 Knowledge and information in the company.

The collective body of company knowledge (core memory) plus the company's skills (core competencies), plus the information system within the company combine to form the company's core capabilities. The knowledge can be the separate knowledge of people (P), but much more important is interactive knowledge between people (P P P P). In the case of company skills it is an additive effect of individual skills (P + P + P + P); in the company, people always have to work together and must not work separately. The information system may be separate sources or combined on a network in an information system.

Fleck (1998) identified expertise as knowledge (philosophy, technical specialities), power (sociology) and tradability (economics). Power is part of the organisational structure, within the company but also in professional and other organisations, and knowledge is seen as embodying social relations within which power is mediated and reproduced. There is no question that power in the company can influence the direction of knowledge in product development, and also the resources for that knowledge, whether the power is held in finance, marketing, production or top management. Tradability is determining if a particular knowledge is better at carrying out a task than a competing knowledge. This is often an argument in industry against using more complex knowledge - will the product development be more efficient and effective or just more costly? Power and tradability emphasise that expertise is not 'pure' in a company; the selection of knowledge is influenced by the people with and without power inside and outside the company, and its marketability both internally and externally. Technological knowledge is often influenced by both of these factors. Communication is also important for the company's capabilities (Court, 1997), and this has been shown in Fig. 4.6 by interrelating the people P P P, but individuals, P, have also been shown who are in the company's capabilities but are not interrelating.

It is important to differentiate between information and knowledge, although there are certainly grey areas where they mix. One can consider them as weighted:

    Data = d

    Information = d x c = data x content

    Knowledge = d x c x e = information x experience

Databases have been shown as a particular type of information. There is a grey area between databases and information, but data are usually considered the raw facts, information is data that have been worked on to give a meaning that can be understood (Court, 1997). Usually databases are the lists of product sales figures or the demographic information on population. There needs to be recognition that information only becomes active knowledge in product development if it is linked either with past experience or experience in the present PD project.

Sources external to the company are important for knowledge not available in the company. Depending on the state of the company's core capabilities, it is important that necessary additional knowledge and skills are transferred from external sources to the company. In particular the knowledge of customers and suppliers provides important sources, where there is close contact between the company and the outside sources of knowledge. There is knowledge and information outside the company that can be used to fill the gaps in the knowledge for specific projects. This is illustrated in Fig. 4.7.

Fig. 4.7 Knowledge and information from outside the company.
(- click to enlarge)

The place of consultants in the knowledge/information spectrum is varied; there can certainly be skills transferred, but unless the consultant is intertwined in the company, only information can be transferred and not knowledge. This is similar for universities and research institutes; skills and information can be transferred, but knowledge can only be directly used if it is relevant specifically to the company. Company staff and company management need to go outside the company to identify new tacit knowledge from consumers, customers, or scientific and technological centres. Many ideas can come from outside the company but there needs to be the internal tacit knowledge to recognise them and relate them to the company product development (Lenzner and Johnson, 1997). It is not enough to read the information coming into the company, it may be out of date and not easily related to the company, and so its effective incorporation has to be organised and ensured.