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Technology Watch Knowledge Base |
Knowledge Management System for Ambiente s.a.r.l. |
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PROBLEM STATEMENT |
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ambiente scrl is an Italian SME founded in 1984 by an enterprising group of young technicians who decided to base their work in the fields of the environment and safety. From the outset this project recognised the challenges for the business as: • Rapid growth of the business • Diverse customer base • Diverse technologies • Constant change in the legal and technology frameworks • Requirements to be able to meet customer needs • Need to be able to maximise and fully use the company’s technical base. Since 1984 the company has steadily grown, developing its initial activities and expanding into new areas concerned with the evolution of legislation pertaining to environmental and safety matters. Currently ambiente scrl is made up of a highly qualified technical staff, possesses equipment and instruments of a high technological level and has acquired know-how and experience of enormous value, in the course of twenty years of intense activity. |
Technical and scientific conventions and collaborations with major institutes (Universities; the National Council for Research, CNR; Regional Agencies for the Protection of the Environment in Tuscany, ARPAT, the National Agency for the Protection of the Environment, ANPA), serve to underline the highly-qualified nature of the organization. Clients include public administrations and major industries operating all over the national territory. The diverse nature of the experience acquired over the years (management and supervision of environmental “impact” of major industries; development studies and planning for public administrations; etc.) and the business desire to expand its markets has led ambiente scrl to recognise the need for a Knowledge Management system that will all it to consolidate and access its library of working methods and know-how in a reliable manner. |
IMPROVEMENT APPROACH |
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The customer was a very good example of a service company with a requirement for a KM system. Work started with benchmarking which revolved around the MAX-SERV level 1 approach and involved the completion of KM-oriented questionnaires by a specialist in cooperation with the customer. These formed the basis for a comparison against other significant players, which were benchmarked previously and led to the identification of areas where potential could exist for performance improvement. A feasibility study was prepared, analyzing the company from an organizational point of view, and a knowledge model was outlined, based on the central notion of ontologies as a valid and flexible way of representing both the information items and the relations between them and with the users participating in the Knowledge Management networked infrastructure. |
The feasibility study also included an overview of existing alternatives on the market for this kind of solutions, which were examined under both a technical and an economic perspective. Due to the narrow time frame allowed, the feasibility analysis prepared has not led to a full system adoption. However, a program of activities was identified and presented to the customer for implementation in the near future. For the purposes of this test case, work mainly focused on solving the customer’s outstanding problem concerning better collaboration between internal and external team works and leveraging of information and knowledge coming out of previous jobs accomplished. No similar benchmark and model based approach is known to have been carried out previously in the specialty area of environmental services. There was no similar case study available within the MAX-SERV data banks. |
BENEFITS |
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The project’s original expectation was that information and knowledge management capabilities of the customer will be significantly increased by undertaking this project. The benefits have been shown as: • improved collaboration between internal and external teams of workers • increased ability to leverage the use of existing information from previous work • faster ability to access the business’s knowledge base Whilst any project requires a financial justification this was not the main reason for this particular test case. The main reason for this case was to demonstrate that for businesses in the process sector that it is possible to design and develop suitable knowledge based systems. In practical terms this will translate into a gain of overall productivity conservatively assessed in 1 person year (out of the current 70 employed people). |
The financial case arising from increased service potential, in terms of productivity is conservatively assessed to be 48keuros per year and translates into a pay back of 7,5 months on a total project cost of 30keuros. In addition, there will be a once-off benefit from the implementation of a knowledge management system in terms of better customer appeal as initially the company will be leading edge and well placed when such systems become the standard for the sector. A further benefit is that the Company will be more able to take part in new collaborations in the fields of basic research, development and training, including at a European level. |
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