Shared experiences: Management of experiential knowledge in the building industry

Abstract

Organizations in the building industry have major difficulties with identifying, saving and distributing knowledge gained during the production process. In this article the authors describe this matter and focus on knowledge exchange between planners and experienced site and project managers. After intensive field study to the nature of planning an approach based on design methodology is suggested to better structure planning (both work and output). Experiences of site and project managers can be taken back into the organization with a tool based on case based reasoning. When designing the construction process the planner is then supported by knowledge gained at earlier planning and construction processes. A conceptual model of the architecture of this tool and a few examples of cases are presented here. The authors finish this article by bringing forward rising questions that give direction to further research.