Revitalizing Knowledge Management at Sargent and Lundy

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Sargent and Lundy’s Business Model Relations to Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management Problems Faced by Sargent and Lundy
Solutions to Problems Faced by Sargent and Lundy
Issues Addressed in Selecting and Implementing the Solutions
Conclusion
References

Abstract

This paper will generally talk about the Management Information System in Sargent and Lundy organization. The writer will discuss how knowledge management is related to Sargent and Lundy’s business model and how the employees carried out daily activities, received training about the job, and how information sharing was being carried out. Services offered by the company will also be discussed as how often employees get recruited. This paper will discuss knowledge management problems faced by the organization in daily operations in the past such as poor communication channels and poor computer-based training of recruits.

The writer covers solutions to knowledge management problems faced by the establishment such as the use of SAP jam for online communication between trainers and employees. The efficiency of the solutions to the problems will be addressed. The firm also used SuccessFactors for educating workers on different tasks and how both software improved the performance and productivity of the laborers. Organizational, technological, and management factors contributing to knowledge management problems will be discussed. The author will finally talk about technological, management, and organizational issues addressed in selecting and implementing the solutions to the problems faced by the firm.

Introduction

Management Information Systems (MIS) is the study of relationships among people, technology, and organizations. Managing knowledge is the procedure whereby a firm collects, categorizes, spreads, or evaluates the information in a manner that is simple for the staff to reach (Di Vaio et al., 2021). This data entails practical incomes, often interrogations, educating documents, and human understandings. Info managing offers a place for individuals to put the information gained over time, helping the institution not to lose such info even when some workers leave the firm. The writer will answer some questions regarding knowledge management arising from the organization’s business model.

Sargent and Lundy has been offering complete engineering, plan administration, and consulting amenities for compound energy generations and spreading schemes for the last 125 years. During this period of the firm’s history, the establishment has managed to design 958 power plants worldwide, whereby its headquarters are in Chicago (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). There are worldwide offices of the power plants in Montreal and Arab. The organization is well known for business facts, production know-how, and good output. Around 88% of the 2,550 workers in the establishment are technologists and architects (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). This firm is always pleased with the knowledge of the employees’ expertise, and workforce loyalty to the organization and most personnel have worked in the corporation for 16 years or more.

Sargent and Lundy’s Business Model Relations to Knowledge Management

The establishment believes that the firm’s workers are best suited for the job and frequently interchanges the staff in different types of work. The administration trusts all the employees and believes every worker can perform various tasks in the firm (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). Sargent and Lundy believe that knowledge management includes sharing different working ideas among employees to improve the firm’s productivity. The company’s management allows every staff to share every knowledge possessed with the other employees. Deanna Myers, the business’s senior learning and development manager, puts more effort into ensuring that the staff has the skills, tools, and resources needed to attain the best in the firm’s occupations.

Every employer joining the firm receives proper training on how different jobs should be done. Sargent and Lundy’s administration noted in the year 2010 that almost half of the experienced designers, engineers, and power experts would have retired by 2015 (Zaim et al., 2019). The retirees could leave the firm with all knowledge acquired during the service term because the company had no means to back up the training sessions. Specialists’ unspoken facts were more challenging to recover after the retirement of the experienced employees, despite the ability of technologists to access the information of the business’s recognized procedures or events (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). The corporation employed many new employees to replace the retiring laborers.

Knowledge Management Problems Faced by Sargent and Lundy

Sargent and Lundy used employee trainer-led courses that did not have backups for future training. By the time the course was over, the administrator may have recruited a few individuals that required the same training (Areed et al., 2019). This means that the same training was supposed to be done for the staff, which was not readily available, time and resource-consuming leading to the recruits missing the courses. The firm did not have computer-based training for employees meaning there were no computers for proper storage of shared information among employees. This led many employees in need of coaching not to acquire the main training. If the organization had computerized training for its workforce, this could mean that no employee would miss the session because the recruit could easily access the stored training courses.

Knowledge gaining, storing, creating, sharing, and implementing are factors leading to problems in knowledge management. Organizational influences that contributed to the problem include keeping shared information up to date and accurate, poor planning, and understanding of data, and attesting that the information is relevant to users (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). Inspiring employees to share knowledge, rewarding the best staff, and identifying key people to share and organize the current information are the management aspects that led to the problem. Outdated technology, inadequate data security, and storage are technological factors leading to knowledge management difficulties.

Solutions to Problems Faced by Sargent and Lundy

The establishment changed the knowledge-sharing techniques and developed a new skill supervision step regarded in SuccessFactors Education Administration Scheme. This is a cloud-based social investment running program set that puts together software for placing and educating workers, communal occupation or collaboration gears, a Learning Management System, and production regulation (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). The software also integrates employing software, candidate following software, succession arrangement, capacity supervision, and human resource analysis to allow a firm in managing laborers extra deliberately hence capitalizing on the staff’s performance. SuccessFactors offers full abilities for reporting and tracking personal staff progress. This software ensures that every employee performs duties as required and at the right time.

Sargent and Lundy’s technical training team, and other experts, used SuccessFactors in developing various teaching plans and education strategies for certain skills. Videotapes, computerized lessons, and modified education strategies for persons dealing with exact fields and know-hows were added to the corporation’s training collections (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). In this case, a locomotive engineer working on a nuclear plant follows an educative strategy with sequences and purposes different from that of an electric technologist employed on a transmission project.

The SAP SuccessFactors was much more effective in the company and gave the employees and managers the tools and guidance needed to succeed. This is because personal staff progress could be quickly reported and tracked, leading to easy employee management by the admins (Chatterjee et al., 2020). The employees would get training on different skills, ensuring that every worker had some knowledge in performing various tasks within the firm. The SuccessFactors helped the organization’s human resources align goals and improve workers’ output through continued coaching, feedback, and recognition of maximum abilities.

The organization introduced SAP jam, a cloud-based societal partnership package. In this package, the new staff would discuss more and get immediate feedback on how perfect this particular group of employees was performing daily (Di Vaio et al., 2021). Sharing of knowledge repeatedly and in actual time among employees was made more accessible through using the SAP jam. Sargent and Lundy’s staff were physically far from each other and hence could not meet one on one. Face meeting among employees is the best way to share information about business trends, better performances, and advanced resolutions. The firm had to change the knowledge-sharing model to give employees more online conversations and knowledge distribution.

The firm introduced many structures for online conversations on the detailed categories of controllers. The staff could easily be connected online to training experts through SAP jam by only clicking the computer mouse. The connection included new workforces and training experts in knowledge management (Antunes et al., 2020). The recruits needed to pay full attention during the training section. The employees would then ask questions to the in-house experts, and the specialists could ensure that all the questions were satisfactorily answered. All the connected staff would discuss how to improve the performance of the company in detail. The employees would therefore learn from each other and put into practice what is newly discovered. This leads to increased performance of employees and high company productivity.

After the firm introduced new knowledge-sharing techniques, the company’s performance was significantly improved because no more time was wasted during the regular training for new staff. SAP jam was much more effective in the company and improved the way employees communicated and received training from knowledge experts, improving the company’s production (Antunes et al., 2020). The SAP jam human resource competencies strengthen and streamlines knowledge sharing for all employees in the firm through onboarding and mentorship programs.

Before the company introduced SAP software, a low number of local employees engaged in deliberations for groups of programs. The program helps employee specialists to collaborate with recruits around specific areas. SAP Jam mainly focuses on discussion groups that may include new employees and knowledge management experts (Di Vaio et al., 2021). After opening the CoP group of interest, nobody is denied the right to ask a question or propose a debating subject, or an article. The group is therefore open to free discussion and suggestions for different events and coming up with essential solutions.

After posting, every employee is allowed to participate and give different opinions. A knowledge expert is allowed to check how other professionals in the communication cluster resolved the same issues and engage employees in the discussion session. The designer will do so by revising what other workers discussed in the last online meeting, reference material and illustrations, and noting down helpful specialists or answers. The software was implemented in late 2016, and by the year 2017, a 126 percent increase in participation was noted by the administration (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). Many workers in the establishment are now using SAP Jam. All workforces in an organization, whether junior or senior, use the package to converse different subjects, come up with answers to queries, and look for evidence to the conclusion.

SAP jam was effective and enlarged staff participation and education in the firm. Online discussions help in recognizing zones for course upgrading and challenges in need of instant engineering employee care. Through SAP jam, communication is improved among employees and the managers, which leads to increased relationships and good performance (Areed et al., 2019). The SAP jam has generally allowed employees to work together and share documents and ideas about a certain topic or goal rather than using emails and other avenues that are not easily manageable.

Issues Addressed in Selecting and Implementing the Solutions

Obsolete technology is one of the technical issues addressed in choosing and applying the solution. This is because for an organization’s information to be safe and long-lasting needs to be stored in hardware such as computers or software like the SuccessFactors (Antunes et al., 2020). The use of technology ensures that data is safe and easy to be updated. This is beneficial to the company because in case the firm employs new staff will be trained using the stored data. The administration will be assured of safe data that will only need to be updated by the experts.

Knowledge gaining and sharing management issue was solved in the organization between employees and information experts. The use of SAP jam facilitated online discussions whereby the employees interacted with the trainers, asked questions, gave answers, and shared information leading to improved employee performance and the company’s productivity (Laudon & Laudon, 2019). This meant that many laborers gained the appropriate information as needed. Poor planning and employee motivation organizational issue was addressed. The company did not at first have good plans on how to educate new staff on sharing information and how the information was shared therefore, feared losing the data when old members retired and left the firm. The company did not reward the best-performing workers which made the staff feel less motivated to share the experience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, knowledge management is essential in an organization that is ready to grow and deliver the best services to customers. Sargent and Lundy’s administration could cut costs of training new employees by the use of in-house computerized training. Using SAP jam increased the number of employees who participated in discussions for communities of practice. The firm’s technical training team, together with other experts, used Success Factors to develop a variety of training programs and education strategies for particular skills. The use of SAP Success Factors helps the administration to have enough track and report on personal staff progress. Employees in the firm ensure that there is good knowledge sharing to empower each other and improve relationships as well as the organization’s output. Organizations that use both software observe regular increased performance.

References

Antunes, H. D. J. G., & Pinheiro, P. G. (2020). Linking knowledge management, organizational learning, and memory.Journal of Innovation& Knowledge, 5(2), 140-149. Web.

Areed, S., Salloum, S. A., & Shaalan, K. (2021). The role of knowledge management processes for enhancing and supporting innovative organizations: A systematic review.Recent Advances in Intelligent Systems and Smart Applications, 143-161. Web.

Chatterjee, S., Ghosh, S., & Chaudhuri, R. (2020). Knowledge management in improving business process: An interpretative framework for successful implementation of AI–CRM–KM system in organizations.Business Process Management Journal, 26(6), 1261-1281. Web.

Di Vaio, A., Palladino, R., Pezzi, A., & Kalisz, D. E. (2021). The role of digital innovation in knowledge management systems: A systematic literature review.Journal of Business Research, 123, 220-231. Web.

Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2019). Management information systems: Managing the digital firm (16^th ed.). Pearson.

Zaim, H., Muhammed, S., & Tarim, M. (2019). Relationship between knowledge management processes and performance: critical role of knowledge utilization in organizations.Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 17(1), 24-38. Web.

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