Effective knowledge sharing
A manufacturer of gearboxes for wind turbines had seen enormous expansion over the past decade and set up new production facilities in India and China to deal with the increased demand. Squarewise was successful in helping the company achieve the essential equilibrium between maximum knowledge sharing and minimum knowledge drain.
Squarewise developed a model which enabled all the technical knowledge present within the company to be identified. With the aid of a large number of engineers, relevant data were collected. Subsequently, the Knowledge Transfer Policy was set up. It is a step-by-step plan to determine whether certain knowledge may or may not be shared. The principle is to share as much as possible, but to treat business-critical knowledge with great care. Finally, all the engineers were trained in applying the Knowledge Transfer Policy in practice.
The project yielded a clear overview of knowledge present and knowledge lacking, as well as a more profound understanding of how knowledge could be shared effectively with the Asian facilities – without any direct risks of knowledge being leaked. This enables the organization to develop new products efficiently while at the same time protecting critical knowledge.
We learned a lot from breaking questions down into smaller sub-questions, answering them and then forging a new whole. We were able to develop a model in constant close collaboration with the client, that was both familiar and practicable.
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