KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Definition
•Knowledge management can be defined as the management of the information, knowledge and experience available to an organisation.
•It involves the creation, capture, storage, availability of knowledge in order that organisational activities build on what is already known and extend it further.
•It extents the works of Data Management and brings competitive edge value to a business organisation.

Knowledge workers
•Are people whose jobs consist primarily of creating new information and knowledge.
•They are often members of a profession such as doctors, engineers, authors, lawyers and scientist.
Data workers
•Processes and distribute information
•E.g. secretaries, data entry clerks.

Knowledge process
Four main processes of knowledge management systems:

Knowledge Work Systems (KWS)
Knowledge workers require easy access to external knowledge bases to create and integrate knowledge. To do this, KWS requires tools such as (Acronym:Powerful GACAU):
Powerful Graphics facilities
Analytical tools
Communication tools
Access to external databases
User-friendly interface

Computer Aided Design (CAD)
•Used by product designers and architects to create, modify, evaluate and test their designs.
•Using more traditional physical design methodology, each design modification requires a mould to be made a prototype to be physically tested.
•That process must be repeated many times, which is a very expensive and time-consuming process.
•Using CAD workstation, the designer only needs to make a physical prototype toward the end of the design process because the design can be easily tested and changed on the computer.
•The ability of CAD software to provide design specifications for the tooling and the manufacturing process also saves a great deal of time and money while producing a manufacturing process with far fewer problems.

Virtual Reality (VR) Systems
•Used for simulating the real world (for entertainment, movies making and work i.e. flight simulators).
•Interactive graphic software and hardware that create computer-generated simulations that provide sensations emulating real-work & real-world activities.
•They have visualisation and simulation capabilities that go far beyond those of conventional scientific and business work.

Financial (Investment) Workstations
•Used in the financial industry to manipulate large amounts of financial data and integrate information from many sources.
•Used in the financial industry to control the knowledge and information from brokers, traders and portfolio manager.
•By providing one-stop information faster and with fewer errors.
•The workstations streamline the entire investment process from stock selection to updating client records.
•Investment companies have installed investment workstations that integrate a wide range of data from both internal and external sources, including contact data, real-time and historical market data, and research data.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) SYSTEMS
•AI systems are based on human expertise, knowledge and some reasoning patterns.
•The objective of AI systems is to develop computer-based systems that can behave like humans.

Expert Systems
•Knowledge-intensive computer programs that capture the expertise of a human in limited domains of knowledge.
•Expert systems are a rules based form of AI.
•An organisation will contemplate using an expert system when:
1.The problem is well-defined: not high level of unstructured problem
2.The expert can define rules by which the problem will be solved
3.The investment in an expert system is cost justified.

Advantages of expert systems
1.Preserving the expertise of workers that can be lost when workers leave the organisation.
2.Storing information in an active form to create and organisational knowledge base and a decision-making mechanism that is free of emotions.
3.Documenting information and knowledge
4.Consistency in decision-making
5.Offering sets of solutions to problems that are too massive and too complex for humans to analyse in a short time.

Disadvantage of expert systems
1.Expert systems are expensive
2.Technology is relatively new
3.People are naturally more creative
4.Systems have a narrow focus

Neural Networks
•Neural networks attempt to copy the processing patterns of the human brain.
•Neural techniques do not rely on a hard set of rules.
•Neural networks can:
1.Be trained
2.Develop a hidden layer of experience and come to a decision based on it
3.Recognise patterns in data from which predictions can be made
4.Cope with incomplete or “fuzzy” data
5.Deal with previously unspecified or new situations.

Fuzzy Logic
•Fuzzy logic is a software technology that expresses logic with some carefully defined imprecision so that it is closer to the way people actually think (i.e. in a fuzzy manner) than traditional IF-THEN rules.
•It has been used for controlling physical devices (like washing machine, rice cookers) and is starting to be used for limited decision-making applications

Intelligent Agents
•Intelligent Agents are software programs that carry out specific, repetitive and predictable tasks for an individual user or business process.
•The agent uses a built-in or learned knowledge base to accomplish tasks or make decisions on behalf of the user.
•Intelligent agents can be programmed to make decisions based on the user’s personal preferences.
•It can also be programmed to search for information or conduct transactions including the internet.

Group Collaboration System (GCS)
•GCS such as Groupware and intranets are systems for knowledge sharing.
•The features and benefits of groupware listed below give rise to the concept of “VIRTUAL ORGANISATION’ in which people skills can be called upon irrespective of physical constraints of time or place (and even of who is the primary employer).

The benefits of groupware are:
1.Messaging and routing facilities enabling users to send a message to a single person or to everyone in the group at once.
2.Access to information database and views that can be customised
3.Group scheduling to keep track of itineraries
4.Public folders to collect, organise and share files with other in the team
5.Delegate access availability for deputies during holiday or sickness
6.Conferencing
7.Assigning tasks to colleagues who can accept, decline or reassign the task
8.Voting facilities
9.Hyperlinks in mail messages
10.Workflow management

Intranets
An intranet is an Internet like network within an organisation.
(Intranets & internets will be covered in detail in later sessions)

Office Automation System
Office Automation is the application of information systems to increase the productivity of data and knowledge workers by supporting the coordination and communication activities.

Examples of OAS are:
1.Word processing (e.g. Microsoft Words)
2.Spreadsheets (e.g. Microsoft Excel)
3.Desktop Database (e.g. Microsoft Access)
4.Desktop Publishing
5.Web publishing
6.Email (e.g. Lotus Notes, Soft Outlook)
7.Voicemail
8.Teleconferencing
9.Electronic Schedulers
10. Imaging software