2023 Schedule

Most successful organizations recognize that a large part of their corporate value is generated by the tacit knowledge and skills of their internal personnel, but often fail in finding ways to manage this elusive asset. This presentation will provide a framework and actual example of one method used to successfully capture and broaden the base of knowledge that are identified as being core competencies for the organization. The senior leaders of any successful organization are able to quickly identify what they believe to be their core competencies, which create their competitive advantage within an industry. Usually these include specific skills and practices that rely on the tacit knowledge of specialists and experts within various departments. However, these same leaders and organizations often fail to effectively capture and manage this knowledge effectively, leading to asset reduction when key individuals leave or retire. This failure to capture knowledge may happen even when specific knowledge management systems (KMS) have been used by the organization. KMS fail when the key individuals do not feel engaged, or simply do not have time for a human resource-driven initiative that drags them away from “important work.” Another common failure cause is when key knowledge owners are dispersed across different departments or geographic locations within the organization and, therefore, do not have a method to share or improve their knowledge base. This presentation proposes an alternative method commonly referred to as a Community of Practice (CoP). The CoP approach is successful in capturing knowledge across a widely dispersed organization and can achieve buy-in from those most needed for its success. We’ll present the framework and tools for building a CoP and a real example of its application in a multinational organization to building a set of standards and practices for fleet-wide vibration and rotor dynamics monitoring and evaluation.