Transfer of knowledge from the service phase: a case study from the oil industry

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the knowledge generated during the later phases of the life cycle of a complex customised product and understand how this knowledge is transferred between projects and between different user groups. A series of four identical rigs for offshore drilling was selected as a case study, and the transfer of knowledge between the first two rigs was explored through two sets of interviews with the rig operators and the project management team. The expected knowledge transfer strategies that emerged from the first set of interviews were analysed and compared with the actual transfer mechanisms identified in the second set of interviews, and similarities and differences were investigated. It was found that the transfer of knowledge primarily occurred within the individual phases of the product's life cycle, and there was poor transfer across the different phases.

The parent–subsidiary knowledge transfer efficiency of Chinese–African multinational enterprises based on a metafrontier epsilon‐based measure model

“…Prusak (1997) suggested that knowledge is the most strategically significant resource of an enterprise, as what enterprises do better than individuals is the sharing and transfer of the knowledge among members of the organization. According to this viewpoint, knowledge‐based resources are usually socially complex and difficult to imitate; hence, the knowledge and capabilities available within a firm are the major determinants to achieve competitive advantage and superior performance (Vianello & Ahmed, 2012). Unlike other resources, knowledge resource does not diminish in value when shared but is actually doubled (Sveiby, 2001).…”

“…Prusak (1997) suggested that knowledge is the most strategically significant resource of an enterprise, as what enterprises do better than individuals is the sharing and transfer of the knowledge among members of the organization. Besides, knowledge‐based resources are often hard to imitate; to a certain extent, the existing knowledge of the enterprise is the main determinant to achieve competitive advantage (Vianello & Ahmed, 2012). However, some scholars believe that sustainable competitive advantage in multinational enterprises (MNEs) is driven by the efficiency of knowledge transfer between parent and subsidiary companies rather than by the knowledge stock of enterprises alone.…”

A collaborative system for capturing and reusing in-context design knowledge with an integrated representation model

“…In the context of engineering design, knowledge management specifically aims to reuse useful knowledge in new design tasks and this reuse is realized through transferring knowledge in the form of information. As such, the terms 'knowledge' and 'information' are often used interchangeably while 'knowledge' is particularly used to emphasize reusing knowledge [1], [3], [4], [7], [12], [16], [20], [24]- [27]. A differentiation of the terminologies can help researchers identify the particular focus of research to achieve an appropriate scope of definition [2], [7].…”

“…The former is more focused on informal knowledge, emphasising a range of organisational issues such as the communication between designers in a distributed design team, while the latter involves technological issues such as the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to the codification of formal knowledge. Work on understanding through-life knowledge and information represents one of the trends for recent research in this area [27], [32]. In addition, despite it is difficult to codify informal knowledge, its importance has been highlighted by many researchers [14], [22], [33].…”

A four-step model for diagnosing knowledge transfer challenges from operations into engineering design

“…Thus, how can we focus on the solutions to such problems not only when they happen but also in trying to prevent similar problems in future units? Although the prevention approach may sound simple or even like the obvious thing to do, generating qualified knowledge from rig operations and applying it in new projects is not a trivial task, and there are still several challenges regarding this knowledge transfer (KT) (Lurås et al, 2015;Vianello and Ahmed, 2012;Wulff et al, 1999aWulff et al, , 1999b.…”