Driving the organizational learning cycle: the case of computer-aided failure management

Nonaka describes the process of creating knowledge in enterprises as an interplay of tacit and explicit knowledge. In the interdisciplinary German FOQUS project, industrial engineers and computer scientists have investigated information systems support for this process in the context of a specific knowledge creation strategy, "learning from failures". In the domain of failure management for complex production machinery, Nonaka’s socialization is supported by service-oriented workflows, externalization is supported by a domain-oriented meta model facilitating the construction of failure models, combination and internalization are supported by formal conflict resolution techniques and informal hypermedia representations. All of these representations are held in a knowledge-based repository. A implementation of the approach is operational in the Aditec demonstration factory at Aachen.