Literature Review
By PPC
Affiliation Managing Knowledge in Aircraft Engineering Maintenance
Abstract
This report discusses the knowledge management techniques of the aircraft engineering industry.
Employees need to follow work standards and adopt an interdisciplinary approach to improve
Organizational results. Employees must be accurate in their work practices. To do this, they need to use their expertise to gain a competitive advantage. In addition, in order to improve organizational performance, employees need to understand all aspects of knowledge management. This report identifies the cases in which American Airlines, Indian Airlines and
Israel Airlines understand the requirements for knowledge management of specific aircraft manufacturing industries. It proposes a method of deploying knowledge management in an organization and raises the knowledge level of employees so that the company can defeat market competition and adapt to the new dynamic work environment.
1. Introduction
Knowledge Management (KM) is a science discipline that emerged in the 1990s with the goal of providing and sharing personal knowledge. It is considered to be the survival issue of some organizations in terms of knowledge retention and sharing of all employees involved.
Knowledge management provides a platform where employees not only can share and exchange their expertise, but also can find a seamless learning experience within a specific range. Knowledge management is important for employees in all departments and industry organizations to adapt to changing trends and adjust them (Akhavan, Hosnavi and Sanjaghi,
2009).
The knowledge management of aircraft and aviation industry is equally important because the industry needs employees to pay attention to safety issues, fierce competition, rising oil prices and maintenance issues.
Because the aircraft needs to operate in an appropriate manner to ensure the sustainable success of the industry, the industry is highly dependent on maintenance and operations issues. Therefore, the organization of this industry has realized the importance of aircraft engineering, and they have begun to regard it as a valuable asset of the organization.
This report will identify important aspects of knowledge management in the aircraft engineering industry and will review important research articles on it. It will also compare the main points of discussion of these articles and provide similarities and differences in the views shared by them. The purpose of this report is to focus on knowledge management in aircraft engineering so that organizations can not only gain competitive advantage, but also improve the knowledge of a given aviation industry employee.
There is a need to develop a framework to help preserve the organization’s internal knowledge of aircraft engineering, which bridges the gap between knowledge management theory and the current practice deployed in the organization.
2. Literature Review
Researchers have noticed that the aviation industry is a highly regulated industry. Employees are required to follow strict guidelines for maintenance, day-to-day operations, and other program reporting to ensure that the quality of the work performed is not compromised (Davenport, De Long, & Beers, 1998). Second, data relating to all these activities should be readily available to engineers, operators, and maintenance personnel.
In different aircraft engineering companies, this data is kept and managed by IT staff. They will prepare documents related to aircraft engineering and provide them to the appropriate staff when needed. They will even explicitly share knowledge in different ways as required. These include five stages as follows:
a) Knowledge Development – In order to create knowledge
b) Knowledge Leverage – In order to apply knowledge in different work environments
c) Knowledge extraction – In order to organize knowledge
d) Knowledge acquisition – In order to acquire knowledge
e) Knowledge deployment – To distribute knowledge
Therefore, the knowledge management strategy in aircraft engineering is to provide all employees with the correct and appropriate knowledge. On the other hand, employees should be aware of different organizational functions and processes so that they can complete designated tasks on time (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). If they lack the necessary knowledge or skills, the organization should provide a knowledge management platform to allow them to accept theoretical methods and deploy them under specific circumstances.
The purpose of knowledge management is to capture, develop, share, and organize the internal knowledge of the organization. This is a multidisciplinary approach to improving the level of work expertise of employees in specific areas.
The first research article discussed the Israel Aircraft Manufacturing (IAI) Knowledge
Management Program that began in 1997. The company consulted with Edna Pasher &
Associates on ways to enhance knowledge sharing within the company. The company hopes to implement various actions to support the knowledge management initiative. To this end, they initially analyzed the current workplace environment and determined the gaps in day-to-day work practices.
The consultants found that there was a gap between employees and senior officials. Employees lack the skills of upcoming new technologies, so they need to be trained on new projects (Moffett, Mcadam and Parkinson, 2003). In addition, because of the decentralized organizational structure, the company could not perform because it seemed to be the biggest obstacle to knowledge sharing.
In addition, retired employees cannot share their experience and knowledge with new employees in the organization. The company does not have any plans to contact new employees and share knowledge with them.
Similarly, in another case of Air India, the company is facing the problem of sharing knowledge through the IT portal. Company management discovered that it needed to master important knowledge courses and share case studies with all employees so that they could analyze and learn important external events.
The company also hopes to nurture core competence centres to increase the overall productivity of the organization. This can be achieved by establishing an appropriate knowledge base with the organization and allowing employees to share their ideas to accomplish the intended task. Therefore, management teams need to deploy knowledge management techniques to improve the learning of employees in specific work environments.
One of the senior executives of the aircraft manufacturing company stated that planning is a key process for thinking, predicting and managing activities for specific organizations. To deploy knowledge management technologies within an organization, companies need to combine business strategies with the way employees work.
This is a challenging task that can be documented and shared with all employees of the organization. For each of these strategies, employees will explain how they work and mention the completion time. The middle manager will approve this task only if the employee can start work. In addition, employees can find technical expertise on any issue through the organization’s given online portal.
Employees can post discussion forums for questions. Other employees and even the organization’s management staff can answer this question in order to solve problems found in the workplace.
In order to implement a successful knowledge management program in an organization, researchers recommend that appropriate document policies and methods be developed in the organization. Can be achieved in a specific way. They are:
I. Knowledge Policy and Strategy
• The entire organization should consider knowledge management as a key tool for success and managing daily practices in the organization.
• Every employee in the organization should understand knowledge management policies and implement them in their daily work
• The organization should develop a separate knowledge management policy document and develop a knowledge management portal accessible to all employees
II. Knowledge Management Resource Allocation
• The senior management of the organization needs to allocate resources for knowledge management activities in order to provide employees with appropriate training
• Top management has the responsibility to provide employees with other resources for aircraft engineering so that they can improve their practice
III. Strategic Realignment
• All knowledge management goals should be consistent with the company’s business goals. It will help senior and middle management personnel provide ground staff with knowledge management courses and allow them to perform assigned tasks in an appropriately designated manner.
Different aircraft engineering companies even designed performance indicators to assess the performance of employees after performing knowledge management courses. These companies measure performance in three measurement levels, including performance measurements, throughput measurements, and outcome measurements.
Southwest Airlines has developed a professional competence centre to support knowledge management initiatives. It includes – mapping the current company’s knowledge to emerging knowledge needs, documenting the knowledge of individual experts and sharing it across the portal, continuously developing employee expertise to overcome market competition, identifying disruptive technologies in global trends and formulating to ensure employees are aware of In this regard, the most advanced knowledge is published to improve professional knowledge, create and manage intellectual property rights, and nurture the next generation by coaching them to ensure the success of the knowledge management centre (Sekaran & Bougie, 2009).
3. Evaluation
Research Articles – i) Managing Aircraft Engineering Knowledge – Operational Approaches and
ii) Real-Life Knowledge Management: Lessons from the field emphasize the similarities of empowering employees through knowledge management. The authors of both articles have confirmed that in today’s highly competitive era, the training and development of employees is crucial.
As globalization has intensified, the challenges faced by organizations are increasing. They need skilled workers who can readily adapt to changing trends and work environments (Dayan, Pashar, & Dvir, 2006). Both articles provide suggestions on how to deploy knowledge management practices in your organization. However, there are differences in their methods of organizing and implementing knowledge management practices. In the first article, the author suggested developing a training plan that meets the objectives of knowledge management. On the other hand, the author of the second research paper proposes to develop an online portal to provide knowledge courses for employees (Zawawi, Akpolat, & Bagia, 2012).
The first article discussed how employees improved company knowledge and workplace practices, while the second research article focused on improving employees’ production skills. Both articles suggest providing information at the right time to support better decisions in the organization.
However, the first research article emphasized the teaching of leadership skills to employees. In today’s organizational environment, leaders need to influence employees so that they can perform and perform in different challenging situations. Aircraft engineering and the aviation industry are challenging workplaces that require employees to work with zero tolerance.
Therefore, in order to meet these challenges, leadership lessons should be provided to the organization’s employees.
Some Saudi Arabian aviation industries adopt this systematic approach, and therefore have developed framework elements and a priori guidelines to ensure effective work practices within the organization. It is found that employee compliance in this industry is based on operational knowledge management aspects and strategies to provide the organization with the desired goals.
The authors recommend following organizational procedures and ensuring that they also comply with legal requirements. These are some cases in the aviation industry, where senior management’s focus is on developing knowledge management frameworks to better manage engineering knowledge and aircraft engineering practices (Peyman, Mostafa, & Mohammad,
2006).
4. Conclusions
Today, all companies and industries, including the aviation industry, need to seek knowledge management methods to achieve their organizational goals (Dayan & Evans, 2006). To survive in this highly competitive world, employees need to learn lessons from different disciplines to increase their productivity in specific workplaces. Knowledge management is a way for employees to upgrade their skills and it can also be shared throughout the organization. This is a process in which knowledge can be shared and organized so that all employees can learn different aspects of their work (Ulrich, 2001).
This report analyzes the case of knowledge management in aircraft engineering and puts forward suggestions for improvement. Companies need to bridge the gap and ensure that employees learn new capabilities to cope with change and gain leadership skills so that they can provide services that the organization expects.
5. Reference
Dayan, R., Pashar, E., & Dvir, R. (2006). Real-Life Knowledge Management: Lessons from the
Field. The Knowledge Management Journey of Israel Aircraft Industry, 25-44.
Sekaran, U. & Bougie, R. (2009). Research Methods for Business: A Skill Building Approach.
New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Dayan, R., & Evans, S. (2006). KM your way to CMMI. Journal of Knowledge Management,
10(1), 69-80.
Zawawi, R., Akpolat, H., & Bagia, R. (2012). Managing Knowledge in Aircraft Engineering –
An Operations Based Approach. International Conference on Industrial Engineering and
Operations Management, 1196-1203.
Akhavan, P., Hosnavi, R., & Sanjaghi, M. E. (2009). Identification of knowledge management critical success factors in Iranian academic research centers. Education, Business and Society:
Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues, 2, 276-288.
Alazmi, M. & Zairi, M. (2003). Knowledge management critical success factors. Total Quality
Management and Business Excellence, 14, 199-204.
Bassi, L.J. (1999). Measuring knowledge management effectiveness. The knowledge management yearbook, 2000, 422-427.
Davenport, T. H., De Long, D. W., & Beers, M. C. (1998). Successful knowledge management projects. Sloan Management Review, 39, 43-57.
Davenport, T. H. & Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge: how organizations manage what they know. Boston, MT: Harvard Business School Press.
Moffett, S., Mcadam, R., & Parkinson, S. (2003). An empirical analysis of knowledge management applications. Journal of Knowledge Management, 7, 6-26.
Peyman, A., Mostafa, J., & Mohammad, F. (2006). Critical success factors of knowledge management systems: a multi-case analysis. European Business Review, 18, 97-113.
Ulrich, F. (2001). Knowledge Management Systems: Essential Requirements and Generic
Design Patterns. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Information Systems and
Engineering, 114-121.
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