Developing a roadmap for knowledge management in construction industry

Download
2007
Erkan, Ceyhun Selim
High turnover rate of employees in construction cause companies in the sector struggle against knowledge loss. Due to the high competition in the market, companies differentiate by keeping and increasing their intellectual capital generally acknowledged as the main source of competitive advantage. Knowledge Management (KM) is defined as any process or practice of creating, acquiring, capturing, sharing, and using knowledge, wherever it resides, to increase learning and performance by sustaining organisational knowledge. This study investigates the awareness of Knowledge Management (KM), applicability of KM tools and the role of intellectual capital assets to propose a roadmap for companies in the Turkish construction industry. For this purpose, the study employs a combination of a detailed literature survey, interviews with ten leading medium large-scale Turkish construction companies, and the analysis of previous KM research and tools. Results are analysed, possible barriers are determined, benefits are identified, KM techniques are discussed in terms of their applicability and a four-staged model framework is developed and discussed in order to assist the construction firms in KM.

Suggestions

Development of a risk assessment tool for post-project appraisal
Anaç, Caner; Birgönül, Mustafa Talat; Department of Civil Engineering (2007)
As competition in the business environment increases, knowledge management becomes a critical success factor. Firms should be able to gather, analyze and reuse knowledge to support their strategic decisions. Construction firms should also analyze information in hand (completed and on going project data) and make it a part of their learning mechanism. Post-project appraisal is an organizational learning mechanism aiming to form an organizational memory. Organizational memory is a remedy for organizational am...
Identifying the effects of education, activities and skills of information technology (it) senior managers and their impact to the organization in the private sector
Ekimci, Namık Atila; Özkan Yıldırım, Sevgi; Department of Information Systems (2009)
Information Technology (IT) is considered as a very important part of today’s world of business and researches indicate that it helped and still helps companies to lower their costs and increase the information quality with speed. On the other hand, Senior IT Managers, such as Chief Information Officers (CIO) roles are very important in the IT department more than other department’s relationships with their senior managers. This study investigates the identification of the effects and importance of the acti...
Development of a lessons learned management process model and a web-based tool for construction companies
Eken, Görkem; Birgönül, Mustafa Talat; Dikmen Toker, İrem; Department of Civil Engineering (2017)
Organizational memory formation and its effective utilization is a source of competitive advantage especially in project-based industries such as construction industry as it may eliminate potential problems in projects leading to higher profitability and less errors. However, project-based nature also poses challenges for establishing organizational memory as it is hard to capture knowledge of temporary project teams and transfer different types of knowledge between projects. This study presents a “Lessons ...
Quantification of Acceleration Claims: a Simplified Approach
Ilgar, Ali Özge; Birgönül, Mustafa Talat; Department of Civil Engineering (2005)
Operating a successful business within the construction industry has become more difficult for companies as the profitability margins decreased considerably compared to previous years. Even, global economy has created an environment in which construction firms are enforced to bid projects at or below lowest profit levels. At the same time, owners are demanding more difficult projects without increasing the quality of contract documents. This has placed an added burden on the individual contractor to constru...
Project management and use of information technology for project communication management in Turkish electronic sector
Tuncer, Şeniz; Erdil, Erkan; Department of Science and Technology Policy Studies (2004)
In this study, Project Management, especially Project Communication Management applications and use of information technology are scrutinized. The general situation of Turkish electronic sector is investigated. The project management applications and closeness to new technologies of companies that operates in Turkish electronic sector are analyzed. A research model is developed with a designed questionnaire, and the levels of project communication management applications and use of interactive communication...
Citation Formats
C. S. Erkan, “Developing a roadmap for knowledge management in construction industry,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2007.