POM Forum: Transfer of Changing Production Know‐How

Kasra Ferdows

Production and Operations Management, 2006, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Even with the rich literature on knowledge management, we still don't know enough about how the rate of change in production‐know‐how affects the choice of mechanisms for its transfer. Codifying tacit know‐how helps, but codification becomes more challenging as the know‐how changes more frequently. Transfer of tacit know‐how becomes much more complicated when it changes often. We need more research in this area, particularly to help production and operations managers who must ultimately use the new know‐how and change their companies' production processes. The paper suggests a framework as a step in that direction. The framework focuses on the interplay between the level of codification and the rate of change of production know‐how, and identifies four zones for classifying production know‐how: “slow and codified,” “slow and tacit,” “fast and codified,” and “fast and tacit.” Examples from McDonald̂s, Club Med, Intel, and AOL are used to illustrate primary transfer mechanisms for each zone (manuals and systems, people, joint‐development, and projects, respectively). Appropriate absorptive capacities in the production units for each zone are also identified. Since the ultimate responsibility of operations managers is to improve (i.e., change) their production know‐how as fast as possible, they would be wise to adopt policies that are closer to those suited for the “fast and codified” zone. Intel and Toyota show good models.

Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1937-5956.2006.tb00031.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:15:y:2006:i:1:p:1-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1111/(ISSN)1937-5956

Access Statistics for this article

Production and Operations Management is currently edited by Kalyan Singhal

More articles in Production and Operations Management from Production and Operations Management Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().