Better Knowledge Management Through Knowledge Engineering: A Case Study in Drilling Optimisation

In recent years the term knowledge management has been used to describe the efforts of organisations to capture, store, and deploy knowledge. Most current knowledge management activities rely on database and web technology; currently, few organisations have a systematic process for capturing knowledge, as distinct from data. The paper presents a case study in which knowledge engineering practices are being used to support knowledge management by a drilling optimisation group within a large service company. The three facets of the knowledge management task are illustrated: (1) Knowledge is captured by a knowledge acquisition process in which a conceptual model of aspects of the company’s business domain is used to guide the capture of cases. (2) Knowledge is stored using a knowledge representation language to codify the structured knowledge in a number of knowledge bases, which together comprise a knowledge repository. (3) Knowledge is deployed by running the knowledge bases within a knowledge server, accessible by on the company intranet.