WEIGHING THE TRADEOFFS OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION: THE CASE OF PRATT-WHITNEY ROCKETDYNE

摘要

As of January 2007, approximately 50% of the workforce in the United States aerospace defense industry was eligible for retirement. This translated to a potential significant loss of knowledge and posed a significant threat to the longevity of and competitiveness in, the defense industry. At the turn of the century, Aerospace firms began to use information systems to develop, retain, transfer, and reuse knowledge - a practice referred to as Knowledge Management (KM). In this case study, we highlight the KM efforts of Pratt-Whitney Rocketdyne. The firm invested $2.5 million to minimize knowledge drain in the organization, resulting in an immediate $25 million cost savings. However, the firm's Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) needed to determine the extent to which the company should reengineer and change the firm's existing IT infrastructure to support the KM Team's objectives. Several best practices for knowledge management practiced by the Southern California Aerospace Industry are presented.