Applying knowledge management to support a virtual organization of mould and die makers

Abstract

This paper describes a framework to support Knowledge Management in a Virtual Organisation operating in the mould and die sector. The approach adopted aims to apply a knowledge management life cycle during the operation of a VE, in order to maximise the knowledge capitalisation and dissemination within the VE environment. The knowledge relevant to the creation and operation of the VE is stored in different but strongly related layers which have to be managed properly. Access rights, knowledge and information level, privacy and security-related issues are included in the framework, taking into accoullt that each company has the right to define who can have access to and at which level of detail the knowledge publicised by such a company. © 2004 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.