Johan Holmqvist

Sharing Expertise: Easier Said Than Done

An extension towards service provision takes place in manufacturing industry. Inclusion of softer service aspects indicates that the common view on knowledge management to control and monitor a technical process have limitations. Sharing expertise is an additional way of managing knowledge particularly with the intentions to make experience based knowledge organizational available. By studying product developers’ daily work, especially how they perceive that they apply and share knowledge, we problematize knowledge activities in product-service development to discuss the established knowledge management activities. The paper suggests some considerations to support the development of a knowledge base for product-service design.

Knowledge Sharing in Product Development – Delimitations of a White Paper Approach

There is an on-going movement in manufacturing industry towards Product-Service Systems (PSS), which manifests the importance of making experience based knowledge organizationally available. In this paper a study of how white books is used and discussing any delimitations in transferring experiences is in focus. The paper builds on an empirical study in a manufacturing company, which has long ago implemented the white book approach and also has the vision of PSS development. It has been found that the format of a white book and the guidelines for authoring them could be a barrier for expressing individually gained experiences. Subsequently, does not support a knowledge transfer between projects having different aims, perspectives and knowledge domains.