Managing Knowledge Different

There are three different cases i am going to talk about where three different companies all have one thing in common which is the ability to share knowledge. Partners Health care, Nucor Steel, and Buckman labs all have something in common, but the way they share and manage knowledge is completely different. Below i will discuss the ways in which each company shares and manages knowledge. 

Partners health care has a unique way of sharing and managing knowledge. Although, they had one goal in mind when they created their different ways of sharing and managing knowledge and that was to eliminate wrong diagnoses and prescriptions. Partners developed a system that would be tied together that consisted of order prescription entry, drug database, patient database, and lab test database. This is online access to different medical publications. Being in the medical field, doctors need to be able to get information fast. It they are not able to get this information quick, it can be a matter of life and death for their clients. The reason they created this is because the doctors were having a hard time trying to remember lots of information as fast as they needed it. They want to be able to diagnose patients, prescribe medicine, and remember the history of the patient they are dealing with.  The first thing they developed was the Physician order entry.

They created the system so accurately that it will detect any prescriptions that may have a negative reaction to their patients. The doctor can enter the prescription information, and the system will either offer suggestive prescriptions or show that something may interfere with the patients medical history. With this information, the doctor can then use their knowledge to prescribe the right medication. When the doctor detects something is wrong, they can change or override a suggestion that the system provided. The only kick back to this system is that it only recommends information based on what has been previously entered. The idea Partners had was to make the knowledge so readily accessible that there was little room for error. The other thing they developed was an event-detection system for times when the doctor is not treating the patient directly but still needs to know something that has happened. The doctor is alerted when hospitalized patients monitored health changes and they need to be helped. When the doctor is notified, he can visit the patient directly or call in a new treatment.  



Nucor steel is a steel manufacturing company that has a highly developed knowledge management system that steers away from using IT to gain competitive advantage like other organizations. This company has developed a perfect social ecology for gathering and maintaining knowledge. In other words, Nucor Steel has created a very effective social system in which people operate. It has certain expectations of individuals, defines certain type of individuals who will fit nicely into the organization, lets individuals be free in perusing actions without prior approval, and affects how the workers interact with people inside and outside of their organization. There are two important factors that Nucor steel focuses on within its organization and knowledge. The first is creating knowledge. Unless they keep generating new knowledge, they will be behind everyone else because knowledge increases every day. The second factor is sharing and mobilizing the knowledge you have acquired through the whole corporate network. Nucor steels system is based on incentives that they offer and the value of the knowledge that each of their workers have to offer the company. Nucor steel encourages their workers to think outside of the box and create unique processes that will be more effective to the company. When an employee thinks outside of the box and the knowledge they share with the company is considered excellent and boosts productivity, they receive bonuses. If you do not pump all the knowledge you are gaining through the whole organization then they will become at risk to their competitors who are able to replicate ideas fast.  Nucor allowed their company to identify opportunities to share knowledge, encouraged their workers to share their knowledge, and built effective ways to encourage their workers to use the knowledge they receive. In order to share the knowledge, they made performance data visible to the whole company. In order to encourage workers to accept and use the knowledge they received, they gave incentives and rewarded the ones with strong performance and the ones with weak performances were exposed to peer pressure.

Buckman labs is a company that utilizes all technology in the way they share and manage knowledge. The way Buckman works is all the information in the databases is accessible to everyone, at any given time they need it. There are many advantages to their system because it is easy to navigate, multilingual, searchable, and also available offline. Also, it steadily streams out information so there is a constant flow for the employees. Buckman allows everyone to access the knowledge base and allows each individual to enter knowledge into the system which is a plus. The system functions 24/7 and it’s updated automatically. Buckman is always using the features of email, groupware, and video conferencing. The system is big on collaborating and teamwork. With the knowledge always being available to be communicated, it is easy for them to be successful. Another good thing about their system is the language is easy to understand. Some people may not be as technologically advances but they can still interpret the system. Buckman also created the new system CompuServe. This system allowed them to monitor discussion, track individual requests, and answer questions within 24 hours. If they could not answer the questions they would find someone who could.

 
These three companies have created systems which they are able to use to their advantage and sustain a competitive edge over their competitors.  Although, the various ways in which they share, manage,update, and store data are significantly different as you can see. Partners focuses on one person making the decision but their system has made lots of information easily accessible to them. Nucor steel focuses on their employees and puts a lot of trust in them to boost their productivity and knowledge stock. Buckman labs makes all of their data and knowledge available to everyone and allows everyone to access it and add to the bulk. Each of these companies have found their own unique way to benefit from managing knowledge different and have had tremendous success in doing so.