One of the biggest mistakes that company with complex products can make is to reinvent the wheel with custom orders. Yes, it is true that custom products are just that, made to order and customized by the business for a specific client and product. It is the basics of products and manufacturing itself that do not change, however. A custom order for even complex products and services will still have quote-to-order, sales and product configuration. While the process itself has unlimited streamlining and correcting potential, the knowledge base for the original process and product will remain intact.

Process management from knowledge management

It is here that we must first apply a knowledge management process to gather the information and data, and then apply the knowledge and context to that data in order to create a knowledge management process that will be a tool, not another repository.

The value of Knowledge Management relates to a business not in the realm of data collection, but in the way in which the contextualized knowledge is managed to enable the members of the business to deal with current situations and effectively envision and mold their future. On demand access to data is nothing without the management that enables the capture, retention, and reuse of the knowledge foundation for imparting an understanding of how the pieces fit together. That in turn must be able to convey to users them meaningfully to some other person.

Access to managed knowledge bases allows your business members to fully address situations with the sum total knowledge of everything anyone in the organization has ever learned about a situation of a similar nature.