STORIES
These first two Boeing examples were presented by Tim Bridges to NASA KM Leaders by invitation on April 28, 2015 to illustrate the business benefits of a comprehensive KM program. Over an 8-year period, approximately 7,000 success stories were reported in metrics as indications of desirable KM related activities across the company.
Problem Solved
Story: A program Chief Engineer with 20+ years of experience was stymied by a weld cracking during a high temperature high vibration test of a critical part. This flaw threatened his program. After two months of exhausting his substantial personal network for answers, he decided to tap into the broader Boeing using the KM system, immediately finding a Boeing Designated Expert in welding the specialized material. Phoning the expert yielded a solution in 30 minutes.
Business Benefits: Cycle time reduction from 8 weeks to 30 minutes to find an answer. Cascaded reductions in cost and schedule for manufacturing, integration, and test of interfacing components.
Observations: In the past, companies relied upon employee’s personal networks, or navigating organization charts. Today we can provide employees with a system of designated experts overlaying self-declared employee expertise. It can be integrated with the HR system and company-wide search, at employee’s fingertips. Designated Experts instantly give a one-week new employee a larger business network than would take three decades to build in the past. Such a system can unleash workforce potential and speed of business.
Cross-Company Collaboration
Story: In 2014 a proposed industry standard for testing aerospace electronic displays was to be updated (SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice 4260). The standard would dictate how Boeing, its suppliers, and the industry should test displays for resolution, reflection, brightness, contrast, color, etc. A Lighting and Display Optics Community of Excellence that was chartered company-wide reviewed the proposed standard and offered comments. The fuse was short, but the community quickly tapped commercial and defense businesses, bringing all perspectives, helping to align it with business, and suppliers to minimize impact on the company when it was later released.
Business Benefits: Avoids cost impacts and potential contract changes associated with coming into compliance with the standard. Gaining a company-wide perspective from individuals with direct line of sight to the work, to proactively adjust a standard before it is levied upon the company and its supply chain.
Observations: In the past, individuals may learn of new standards and gain localized comments, or maybe company-wide views after working up their organization and down other organizations (if management helps). Today, a people dominated system of communities endorsed by company leadership can rapidly acquire a company-wide perspective. In the process, they also capture/transfer knowledge organically, and help newer and experienced employees network.
These last three business examples come from Tim Bridges’ experience with various organizations and/or government entities. They are illustrative, and the organizations and individuals have been obscured or changed.
Leveraging Historical Knowledge
Story: Organization X needs to replace 20 to 30 older electronic boxes out of 60 scattered among facilities in the NE region of the US. Organization X foresees a 2-3 year project that will cost several $Ms. Management and employees are in an offsite devising a plan of attack. The challenge is knowing which facilities have the older electronics. Sometimes there are two or three electronic boxes of different vintages at a facility. To figure out where the older equipment is, two teams are being set up to scour various databases, pull up old site installation drawings, travel and inspect sites. It turns out that 25 years ago these old boxes were being newly installed, and their locations and other key information was written down in a report at that time. A highly-regarded 33-year veteran engineer present in the offsite was on the team that installed radios 25 years ago and had a copy of the report. This information could save significant project time and cost (approximately $600K). But rather than speak up in the meeting, he was silent.
Business Opportunity: Missed opportunity to jump start today’s project, possibly saving most of $600K.
Observations: Culturally, the leadership, or someone else in the meeting, could have asked if anyone remembered when the electronics were initially installed, and who worked on the project. But instead they were focused on the present and how they were going to run the project. There could have been designated experts on that equipment for Organization X, regardless of geographical location. If so, someone in the meeting might have thought to consult them, which may lead to the old report. The mere existence of such experts often prompts the desired thinking to reach back into a broader organization. Finally, we should ask why the well-regarded employee didn’t speak up. If Organization X had a deliberate knowledge sharing system that included designated experts chartered across the organization, engagement goes up because people feel like they matter and are accustom to being asked questions from others across Organization X. Thus, there are less instances of silence, or cases where a group doesn’t think to leverage their broader organization, as in this example.
Leveraging Knowledge Across Organizational Silos
Story: Bob has a customer who asked how difficult it might be to add a vibration monitoring system to a specific steam turbine purchased earlier from Bob's company. Bob doesn’t know, so he emails an engineering manager he knows in another division, asking if this is possible. The engineering manager forwards the request to ten direct reports who being their own research, probably telling two friends, and so on. Time passes as networks are exercised, and then the engineering manager recalls there’s a KM system. He queries “vibration monitoring” on his desktop company search engine, and four authorized experts from unknown parts of the company are listed, two of whom are showing available. He phones the first, Sarah, who explains the same model steam turbine is used for client she supports, and it has a vibration monitoring system. Further, the steam turbine model comes with provisions for adding such a monitoring system, and it’s a relatively simple matter to retrofit one. This takes 15 minutes. The manager conveys this to Bob, as well as his direct reports. Bob informs his customer immediately.
Business Benefit: The benefit is a happy customer for the cost of 15 minutes time among two employees. The opportunity is eliminating 15 minutes times 10 direct reports, times an average of 2 additional networked individuals, or 300 minutes. This is a 10X savings. And 100’s to 1000’s of such questions are pursued daily, depending on the size of your company.
Observations: Bob relied on his personal network, starting with a colleague in engineering, who pulses his own network, expanding the search. This is typically how answers are obtained. However, exercising networks takes time and costs money, pulling people away from prior commitments. Indeed, much of an employee’s day can be spent on ”pop ups” like this. However, if Bob had simply gone to his own desktop search engine, he would have rapidly found Sarah, an expert with an authoritative answer. Bob and Sarah, two employees, would have been exercised. This is far more efficient than the engineering manager, his 10 direct reports, and the networks they in turn exercised; all investing time and potentially impacting prior commitments. Sarah could have summarized the question and answer on her steam turbine community's Q&A archive for future use by in the company. Employees working on steam turbines could have Q&As “pushed” to them, if they so desired, thus keeping the workforce informed of development.
Sharing Experience
Story: A senior engineer shares experience with a junior engineer regarding examining test equipment calibration papers to ensure equipment calibration certifications will remain current throughout the full duration of a qual test campaign. He/she shares that during a pedigree review preceding a rocket launch, the Government would raise questions about the validity of the test results if test measurement equipment calibration expiries prior to completing the test. Also shared, is how to mitigate against this by enlisting metrology, inspecting the test equipment paperwork, and allowing schedule margin for common sources of test delays.
Business Benefit: This is a cost/schedule avoidance, and employee development. It’s an avoidance of potential schedule impacts associated with restarting a test, or worse, not getting through pedigree review at a critical point leading up to a rocket launch. If a unit had to be retested, it could introduce over testing of the unit, risking its viability as a flight unit later. These kinds of program impacts could be very costly, yet could stem from this seemingly “small” detail regarding calibration. Employee development is of course the junior engineer learning a real life example in the context of work application.
Observations: This happened organically driven by a good culture and sense of mission without any “KM System”, which is ideal. Also, this way of learning from others in the context of application sticks well, second only to learning it yourself through personal experience. It will stick better than any “training” offered by a learning management system. Too often senior employees take their most valuable knowledge to the grave, or worse, competitor, so getting it into the heads of other employees will preserve it.
Story: An avionics test is failing intermittently and the test engineer is unable to isolate the cause. A senior engineer shares experience regarding connectors and insert/pin choices, and how continuity can be intermittently lost if unused parts of the insert are not filled with ”bones” to fully secure the connector in use. The engineer found inserts were in fact not fully populated, added "bones" and passed the test.
Business Benefit: This is a cost/schedule avoidance, and employee development. It’s an avoidance of potential schedule impacts associated with test delay or unnecessary redesign of the unit under test. It's employee development through learning on the job directly from senior experts, in context.
Observations: This benefit was enabled by rapid access to a personal network of experts in testing and connectors.