Implementing a Wiki to Capture and Share Engineering Knowledge

Paper in proceeding, 2010

This paper describes the implementation of a wiki system based on the wiki engine MediaWiki for the purpose of engineering knowledge capture and sharing in an internal R&D unit that is part of a global group of companies in the commercial vehicle industry. Three different knowledge processes are studied; 1. Knowledge creation that is based on a socialization process that mainly creates tacit knowledge distributed across individuals; 2. Knowledge transfer that is based on reuse of tacit knowledge by physical transferral of knowledge holders; and 3. Knowledge application which entails a core team of individuals applying their collective knowledge base to solve a given problem. It is found that a wiki system’s features of collaborative and web based input make it possible to support all three of the processes by making the tacit knowledge base explicit. It is concluded however that the implementation of a wiki also needs: 1. A structure that reflects the business processes in the unit; 2. A clear definition of knowledge as a deliverable in the processes; 3. A model for how the time spent on contributing to the wiki is financed; and 4. A strategy for tackling corporate IT governance policies’ inability to manage interactive Web 2.0 technologies.