Ford’s Best Practice Replication

The absolute, most critical success factor in knowledge management (KM) success is senior level support via role models, executive sponsorship, removal of barriers to knowledge sharing, and making learning a priority

Ford’s Best Practice Replication initiative, spurred by economic pressures in the late 1990s, has more than 50 communities of practice spanning HR, IT, logistics and manufacturing. After Action Reviews are routinely held during major projects. Initial surveys indicated that engineers were spending approximately 25 per cent of their time looking for information but finding only 10 per cent of what they needed. Metrics were devised to measure how much of this gap could be closed, and how to translate these measures into the appropriate language and needs of each community.

Ford has documented over $1 billion of hard value from 1995 to 2002 thanks to this initiative, which costs no more than $500 million annually to administer and support. The rate of accidents also dropped. Ford has now integrated best practice replication from its KM initiative into its Six Sigma initiative.

source:http://www.techsparks.com/The-executive-role-in-knowledge-management.html