Toward building a knowledge management system in K&A

The objective of knowledge management is to provide a mechanism able to improve the organizational work process and make it more efficient. This is accomplished by capturing the intellectual assets and empowering the engineers' knowledge level for the welfare of the organization. The paper starts by discussing the importance of knowledge management in improving the competitive edge of firms in general and of consulting firms in particular. Then, the paper discusses the process of building a knowledge management system in the Structuring Engineering Department at Khatib and Alami Consulting Company in Lebanon. The knowledge needed, tacit and explicit, during the design phase is identified and mapped according to the design process. In addition, an intranet web-based knowledge management system was development to diffuse both explicit and tacit knowledge. The paper concludes with the lessons learned from the experience of building the knowledge management system and the steps needed to improve it.