Collaborative Knowledge Management – A Construction Case Study

Due to the new threats and challenges faced by the construction industry today, construction companies must seek new solutions in order to remain ahead of the competition. Knowledge has been identified to be a significant organisational resource, which if used effectively can provide competitive advantage. A lot of emphasis is being put on how to identify, capture and share knowledge in today’s organisations. It has been argued over the years that due to the fragmented nature of the construction industry and ad-hoc nature of the construction projects, capture and reuse of valuable knowledge gathered during a construction project poses a challenge. As a result critical mistakes are repeated on projects and construction professionals have to keep “reinventing the wheel”. Given the nature of construction projects, collaborative knowledge management seems to be the most appropriate solution to capture project based knowledge. Information and communication technologies offer a number of solutions to implement collaborative knowledge management solutions. This paper discusses a range of these solutions and presents a case study where a collaborative Knowledge Management solution is implemented across a multi functional construction company. The work presented in the case study was carried out while the first author was employed by the case study organisation. A social web application was implemented to solve a particular knowledge sharing problem within the organisation’s concrete pumping business. The new solution provided an effective and simple way to create knowledge by taking employees’ ideas through an iterative cycle of discussion.