Summary

Prospectus

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Prospectus

The following information is presented by Richard Neal, Executive Director of Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative (IMTI), who will lead the seminar.

On March 4, 2004 at 1:00 EDT NASA and the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing (NCAM) will sponsor an interactive seminar on Knowledge Management in Design and Manufacturing.  This seminar will focus on putting knowledge to work for bottom-line success in achieving organizational goals of increased productivity, quality, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.  It will highlight the results from a workshop, conducted in October 2003, in which 60+ practitioners shared success stories and created a vision for the future. Knowledge Management/Applications is an important topic for industry and government.  By capturing and applying knowledge, we can assure ourselves of best practices in product and process design, and in producing and supporting products.  We can assure that core competencies are maintained, and that the enterprise operates to its optimum potential. The seminar will cover: 1. The current state of practice and the case for change 2. Success stories, with quantitative returns 3. The vision for the future

The Call to the Seminar
The seminar is available to all U.S. based organizations via webcast.  The charge for the seminar is $50 per site.  There is no limit to how many people may view the webcast from a single site, so gather your friends and colleagues and take advantage of this exciting opportunity.

Who should participate?  Anyone interested in the use of knowledge management to enhance your capabilities in design and manufacturing need to attend.  Whether your concern is for the capture and management of knowledge, knowledge applications in design, knowledge applications in manufacturing, or the use of knowledge in controlling the enterprise, you will find your interests addressed through a combination of lecture and on-line interaction.

Goals of the Seminar

• To foster a better understanding of current and emerging opportunities for application of knowledge management tools and processes in design and manufacturing operations.
• To highlight successes and solutions, which can be emulated by your organization.
• To foster an awareness of and appreciation for the business aspects of applied knowledge.
• To create interest in the formation of a Knowledge Management Network.

The Challenge and the Opportunity
Ineffective Knowledge management is a major barrier to competitive advantage for design and manufacturing enterprises.  However, effective Knowledge management is delivering breakthrough successes for companies in every sector of the economy.  Many organizations have fundamental questions about the value of capturing information and knowledge in digital form without a clear connection to practical applications.  Knowledge management investments must be clearly tied to the processes and goals of the organization - reducing costs, increasing profitability, producing better products, accelerating innovation, and assuring the sustained ability to produce competitive products.

Ford Motor Co. Saves $1.4 Billion over 8 Years Dale McKeehan, then-general manager of vehicle operations at Ford Motor Co., commissioned a team in the late 1980s to drive productivity improvements based upon the proven success of others. He believed that transferring knowledge in this manner would lead to a better way of doing business. The team captured and shared best practices from each of its plants; this was the genesis of Ford's Best-Practice Replication process that has delivered approximately $1 billion of hard dollar value from 1995 to 2002.  The 2003 update to this number raises the total above $1.4 billion! You will learn about many other successes in the seminar.

Leading companies in all sectors have developed strategies for knowledge management.  Many are achieving great success by applying knowledge management philosophies, methodologies, and tools.  For example:

• Boeing Aircraft and Missiles reported savings of $4.5 million and improved configuration control by establishing a common repository for engineering drawings - plus a better assurance of configuration control.
• Xerox documented savings of $30 million in the early operation of a system for analyzing maintenance data and identifying recurring problems.
• Pharmaceutical manufacturer Hoffman-LaRoche reduced the approval cycle for new drugs from 9 months to 3 months, saving more than $90 million.

These successes are only a glimpse of the value that companies can realize from effective knowledge management.  This is certainly the case in design and manufacturing, where the potential is largely untapped.  This seminar will seek to illuminate this potential and define keys for turning potential into success.

Definitions of knowledge management vary depending on perspective.  To the design engineer, it means having all information needed to create a design that is optimized for performance, cost-effective, performs as intended, meeting all customer goals and requirements.  To the manufacturing planner, it means quickly translating the design into process plans yielding high-quality products, while making best use of existing capital assets and supply chain resources.  It also means having all the information needed to make smart make/buy decisions, manage the production workforce, and eliminate scrap and rework by ensuring 100% quality in-process.

For several decades, we have developed knowledge based advisors and expert systems to support design and manufacturing planning activities.  However, business practices and technological and cultural barriers have limited our ability to exploit these applications.  It is time to make a bold statement that automated, knowledge-based design is not a future dream, but an emerging reality.  It is time to fully exploit the potential of knowledge management applications for managing all aspects of the product life cycle.

Conduct of the Seminar
Richard Neal will lead the seminar.  Mr. Neal is the Executive Director of the Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative, and was the organizer and facilitator for the workshop held in October.  Mr. Neal has over 30 years of experience in the manufacturing arena, and has founded and led several national manufacturing programs. He is well qualified to lead a discussion on this important subject.

So What? Many people understand that knowledge management is important to some people, but they may not understand how it impacts them and their world. This seminar will emphasize the pragmatic approach to knowledge applications, answering the "so what" for every participant.

The seminar has six modules:

1. Introduction - Knowledge Management With An Applications Focus
2. Knowledge Acquisition, Storage, and Retrieval
3. Knowledge Applications in Design
4. Knowledge Applications in Manufacturing
5. Corporate Knowledge Management
6. Conclusion - Putting Knowledge to Work in Delivering Solutions - the management perspective

Definition of the Workshop Topics
As presented above, the workshop will be presented in six modules, with interaction during and between each module. The modules will address:

• Introduction - Knowledge Management with an Applications Focus - This module will set the stage for the seminar. It will emphasize that while knowledge management is the subject, the important message is not that knowledge can and should be managed, it is that knowledge can and should be applied as a major tool for addressing the needs of any enterprise.
• Knowledge Acquisition, Storage and Retrieval - This topic addresses the acquisition and management of knowledge, from both the information technology viewpoint and the practitioner's viewpoint.  New approaches are required for creating and managing shared knowledge repositories.  What are these approaches, and how can they best be implemented?  How is the captured knowledge validated and verified?
• Knowledge Applications in Design - The focus of this element is transitional development, from customer needs and preferences to a product design.  The necessity of process capability as a product design requirement will also be addressed.
• Knowledge Applications in Manufacturing - This element focuses on the use of knowledge to create detailed manufacturing process plans, controlling the processes, and assuring quality.  In addition, the management of assets in manufacturing requires layers of knowledge about capabilities, capacities, availability, inventory, etc.  This topic also includes life-cycle management and the integration of process modeling with knowledge for science-based manufacturing.
• Corporate Knowledge Management - Knowledge management as a strategic activity will be the major focus of this discussion.  Corporate issues include the assurance of corporate capability, control of risk and liability, and decision-making.  In addition, the decision process for technology investment and the return on investment for knowledge management will be included.
• Summary - Putting Knowledge to Work in Delivering Solutions - the Business Perspective - While applications examples will be part of every module, the summary will emphasize the business case for knowledge applications. It will identify key areas for focus, and will challenge the group to continue the dialogue on this important topic.

Logistics
As stated above, registration is managed by the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing, part of the College of Engineering at the University of New Orleans.  Registration is limited to the first 500 sites, so get your registration in today.  WebTrain, which will be used to webcast the seminar, provides a comprehensive capability for presentation and interaction, and provides an excellent vehicle for the session.