Applying Knowledge Management to Build-to-Order Processes in Manufacturing and Service Companies

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Chapter 3: Research Methodology:
The impact of knowledge-management strategies on the build-to-order process delivers significant operational and financially-based gains over time. Being able to design a specific build-to-order process so that it can deliver the maximum results possible is predicated on understanding several critical factors in a business adopting this approach to unifying selling and production. To attain the highest perfect order accuracy, companies adopting the build-to-order process as a selling and service process must first concentrate on the role-based use of knowledge management throughout their enterprises.
Role-based use of knowledge alleviates the potential for errors in order processing and reduces the churn of incorrect orders that must be corrected by a median of seven or more times, and increases the accuracy of long-term product planning and new product launching (Columbus, 2008). The Perfect Order metric captures the extent to which role-based knowledge is being shared throughout an organization. The greater the agility, accuracy, and speed with which a company is using role-based knowledge, the greater the Perfect Order accuracy, operations, and financially-based performance it attains.
The intention of this methodology is to factor the use of role-based knowledge in the build-to-order process, and thereby determine how enterprise, legacy, and previous isolated systems are optimized for performance. Dashboard and the hierarchy of supply-chain metrics are excellent metrics for measuring the broader trends impacting a company over time to be implemented with an internal framework which can quantify performance gains over time. Therefore, this methodology also concentrates on creating this framework of measurable performance gains that are directly attributable to a more accurate and efficient build-to-order process over the long term. Chapter 3 offers a brief description of the adopted research methodology

Dr. Thomas Zachariah is an Information Technology Management and Technical Professional who has received his PhD in Management from Central University of Nicaragua, Nicaragua and his Doctorate of Management from Swiss Management Center University, Switzerland. He is also a certified Project Manager from Stanford University, USA.