Knowledge Management System Architecture for the

Industry Cluster
Pradorn Sureephong, Nopasit Chakpitak, Yacine Ouzrout, Gilles Neubert,
Abdelaziz Bouras

To cite this version:

Pradorn Sureephong, Nopasit Chakpitak, Yacine Ouzrout, Gilles Neubert, Abdelaziz Bouras. Knowl-
edge Management System Architecture for the Industry Cluster. The International Conference on
Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM 2007), Dec 2007, Singapore. pp.xx-xx.
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 Knowledge Management System Architecture for the Industry Cluster

P. Sureephong1, N. Chakpitak1, Y. Ouzrout2, G. Neubert2, A. Bouras2

1
College of Arts, Media and Technology, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2
LIESP Laboratory, University Lumiere Lyon 2, Lyon, France

propose a knowledge management system architecture

Abstract - Since the concept of the industry cluster was and methodology for the industry cluster.
popularized by Porter in 1990, many countries try to
improve the competitiveness of through industry sector. Not
only companies who take part in the cluster but also A. Industry Cluster
academic institutes, government agencies, associations, and
supportive industries. The more actors involved in the
cluster the more knowledge were distributed among the The knowledge-based economy is affected by the
member of cluster. Although, many literatures about cluster increasing use of information technologies. Most of
explained how knowledge is important for the cluster industries try to use available information to gain
development. But, there is no specific knowledge competitive advantages. Knowledge-based economy is
management methodology or system for the cluster. This based on the production, distribution and use of
study is concerned about knowledge exchange in the cluster knowledge and information [2]. From the study of
by using knowledge engineering methodology to analyze, ECOTEC in 2005[3] about the critical success factors in
model and design Knowledge Management System (KMS). cluster development, first two critical success factors are
At the end of this study, we will implement KMS in
handicraft cluster in Thailand as our case study. As we are
collaboration in networking partnership and knowledge
in the beginning of the study, this paper proposed creation for innovative technology in the cluster which
methodology and primary result from knowledge are about 78% and 74% of articles mentioned as success
engineering. Then the KMS architecture was proposed as criteria accordingly. This knowledge is created through
the result of study in this paper. various forms of local inter-organizational collaborative
interaction [4]. There are many literatures regarding
Keywords - knowledge management, architecture, cluster developing in economic and management aspect.
industry cluster However, there are a few of literatures which study about
cluster development in knowledge management context.
Therefore, the fundamental of this study is about
I. INTRODUCTION enhancing cluster by using knowledge management
theory.
In developing country, Small and Medium The concept of industry cluster was popularized by
Enterprises (SMEs) are very important to their economy Prof. Michael E. Porter in his book named “Competitive
due to more than 70% of firms in industry sector are small Advantages of Nations” [1]. Then, industry cluster
to medium size. Thus, governments try to support these becomes currently trend in economic development
companies in various ways such as financial support, planning. However, there is considerable debate regarding
government policy or import/export promotion. However, the definition of the industry cluster. Based-on Porter’s
large number of SMEs still can not survive in the definition about industry cluster [5], in this study the
competition. cluster is “geographically proximate group of companies
After the concept of industry cluster [1] was tangibly and associated institutions (for example universities,
applied in Thailand in 1998. Thai SMEs trended to link to government agencies, and related association) in a
each other to maintain their competitiveness in the particular field, linked by commonalities and
market. Successful companies gain benefits from being a complementarities”. Until now, literatures of the industry
member of the cluster. The major key success factors are cluster and cluster building has been rapidly growing both
knowledge sharing and collaboration within the cluster. in academic and policy-making circles [3].
This knowledge was collected in form of tacit and explicit The characteristic of the industry cluster is depending
knowledge in expert and institutions within cluster. Thus, on definition, type of industry, and collaboration.
applying knowledge management theory through cluster However, the general cluster should have these characters
development should assist industry cluster to be able to to support the development, i.e. connectivity,
achieve their goal efficiently. collaboration, competition, and collective efficiency [6].
Although, many papers claimed that knowledge is very However, the concept of industry cluster development is
important for cluster development but no demonstrate quite different form organization development in many
empirical method to initiate or improve knowledge aspects. Cluster is composed of firms in specific industry,
sharing for cluster. Then, the objective of this paper is to academic institutes, financial institutes, government
agencies, and associations. Due to, there is no hierarchy, II. METHODOLOGY
penalty, or incentive. Besides, the main goal of cluster is
not the maximum profit but improving competitiveness of Our methodology was separated into two main parts.
entire industry. Cluster Development Agent (CDA) is a Firstly, knowledge engineering process which is more in
person who plays a role as a facilitator in the cluster. the process/task based approach. Secondly, knowledge
From cluster green book [7], CDA is a critical success system development process is oriented in the
factor in cluster. From the statistic, 89% of successful infrastructure/generic based system approach. This
cluster have full-time CDA. integration combined technical and non-technical aspects
of knowledge management theory within this architecture.
B. Knowledge Management System 1) Knowledge Engineering (KE) process: is strongly
emphasized on the conceptual modeling of knowledge
Knowledge management is the discipline that helps intensive activities. The often geographical techniques
spread knowledge of individuals or groups across have proved to be very useful in clarifying the major tacit
organizations in ways that directly affect performance. knowledge, in a way enabling and stimulating fruitful
Knowledge management envisions getting the right communications with variety of people (managers,
information within the right context to the right person at experts, end users, customers) who often do not have
the right time for the right business purpose [8]. background in information technology [8].
Knowledge Management System (KMS) is a system There are several knowledge engineering methods
for managing knowledge in organizations, supporting such as CommonKADS [8], SPEDE [14], and MOKA
creation, capture, and storage and sharing of expertise in [15]. However, we selected CommonKADS as knowledge
the form of information. Jennex and Olfman [9] classified engineering methodology in this study become it provided
the KMS in to two groups based on amount of common a model suite (Fig.1) and template knowledge models for
context of understanding. solving problems. Besides, it is now a European de facto
1) The process/task based approach: focuses on the standard for knowledge analysis and knowledge-intensive
use of knowledge by participants in a process, task or system development.
project in order to improve the effectiveness of that Together, the organization, task, and agent models
process, task or project. This approach identifies the analyze the organizational environment and the
information and knowledge needs of the process, where corresponding critical success factors for a knowledge
they are located, and who needs them. The KMS is system. The knowledge and communication models yield
designed to capture tacit knowledge and to make the conceptual description of problem-solving functions
knowledge available when needed to whom needs it. and data that were handled and delivered by a knowledge
2) The infrastructure/generic system based approach: system. The design model converts it into a technical
focuses on building a base system to capture and specification that is the basics for software system
distribute knowledge for use throughout the organization. implementation.
It concern of the technical details needed to provide good
mnemonic functions associated with the identification, 2) Knowledge system development processes: are
retrieval, and use of knowledge. The approach focuses on relative to knowledge engineering process. The outputs
network capacity, database structure and organization, from CommonKADS model suite are specific
and knowledge information classification. requirements for designing knowledge system. Integrating
Even though several models related to KM these components to create knowledge management
technologies have been developed, but they could not be system model requires thinking in term of info-structure,
used directly to meet the objective of this study. For rather than infrastructure [10].
example, the seven layer KMS architecture [10] which
mirrors the OSI Model used in data communication [11]
is oriented to the infrastructure/generic system based
approach. The KM spectrum [12] and the Ovum KM tools
architectural model [13] are process/task based approach.
They are comprehensive in scope but lack of actual
deployment examples and obscure reference to
fundamental KM process [11]. Most of literatures
proposed KMS architecture to support KM activities
within single organization or community. As we
mentioned earlier that the cluster development is different
from usual organization so we tried to propose specific
KMS architecture for the cluster that integrated
process/task based and infrastructure/generic system
based approach together.
Fig. 1. CommonKADS model suite.
 The KMS architecture for the industry cluster was
adapted from three-tier KMS architecture [11] identifies
three distinct services supported by knowledge
management technologies. They are collaboration
services, knowledge services and presentation services as
shown in Fig. 2.
1) Collaboration services: refer to the basic
technology platform and features needed to implement
KM. The two main infrastructure services provided by
technology are storage and communication.
1.1 Storage: known as knowledge repository such
as drawings, audio, video or multimedia documents.
The knowledge server which allow user to build
content, create references and establish links among
documents is technology that support KM processes, Fig. 2. Knowledge system for the industry cluster.
particularly knowledge creation and knowledge reuse.
1.2 Communication: related to collaboration and 3.2 Visualization: help users better understand
sharing activities in the cluster. This communication the information and knowledge available by making
services are designed by specification output from subject-based browsing and navigation easier [17].
communication model of CommonKADS. They 4) Cluster Development Service: concerned with
could support communication between users (ex. e- facilities for CDA to analyze and assess collaboration and
mail) among user (ex. synchronous meeting and sharing in the system. Technologies that support these
asynchronous discussion forum) and workflow services are social network analysis (SNA), accounting
management. system, user’s activities tracking, etc.
2) Knowledge services: intended to help achieve the 4.1 Cluster visualization: helps CDAs to
goals of KM directly. Three primary goals are to promote visualize their cluster character such as social
the process of generating new knowledge, encourage the network map, cluster map, etc.
flow of knowledge among organization members and 4.2 Collaboration accounting: show the quality
ensure the ease of access to knowledge repository [16] of communication and sharing by taking account
2.1 Knowledge creation: is capability to capture from users’ activities via KMS.
and codify knowledge held by experts. This process
was done by domain experts or knowledge engineer
with the knowledge elicitation techniques provided III. INVESTIGATIONS AND RESULTS
by CommonKADS.
2.2 Knowledge sharing: is an important goal of The initial investigations have been done with 10
KM technologies that support the knowledge sharing firms within the two biggest handicraft associations in
process which is collaborative tools, such as shared Thailand and Northern Thailand. NOrthern Handicraft
spaces, calendaring, workflow management service, Manufacturer and EXporter (NOHMEX) association is
etc. the biggest handicraft association in Thailand which
2.3 Knowledge reuse: is a synonym with includes 161 manufacturers and exporters. Another
“information retrieval” in the information association which is the biggest handicraft association in
management literature. The emerging technology aim Chiang Mai is named Chiang Mai Brand. It is a group of
to provide enhanced search capabilities as user’s qualified manufacturers who have capability to export
needs and automatic generation of meta-data [17]. their products and passed requirements of Thailand’s
Technologies that support knowledge reuse process ministry of commerce. Until 2007, there are 99 authorized
are content management system (CMS) or concept enterprises to use Chiang Mai brand on their products.
mapping. Regarding the study on cluster mapping by KIASIA
3) Presentation services: concerned with enhancing [19], this project was funded by National Economic and
the interface between the user and the information Social Development Board (NESDB) to survey and
/knowledge source. analyze the current condition of clusters through the
3.1 Personalization: involves gathering user- country. One of the recommendations that issued to Thai
information and delivering the appropriate content government is to establish knowledge database on cluster
and service to meet the specific need of a user [18]. development to bring together cluster development
This service refer to the rule that determine how users information from various organizations. This will create
and content are matched, base on their attributes and more complete data on cluster development that can be
values. used for monitoring operations and the progress of the
development or related parties. Another recommendation
is strengthening Cluster Development Agents (CDAs)
within 5 years.
 As we are in the beginning of this study, organization (cluster level)
CommonKADS was used as a knowledge engineering b. Between firms in the core business
methodology in the context level (organization model, (core business level)
task model, and agent model) in order to understand 5) Create tools to support the capability of cluster
organization environment and corresponding critical development agency (CDA) to facilitate the
success factors for knowledge system. cluster.
As shown in Fig. 3, Organization Model (OM-1 to
OM-5), we found that handicraft cluster has its own From knowledge engineering process in context level,
vision as “Knowledge sharing hub for handicraft we proposed our knowledge management system
exporter”. And companies defined their problems, such as architecture for support cluster as shown in Fig. 4
intellectual property problem, lack of collaboration, CDA The proposed architecture consisted of three parts,
development, product innovation, and product exporting. knowledge system part, ontology part, and knowledge
However, this cluster has many opportunities and engineering part. The Knowledge system part interacts
solutions as well. We used “product exporting” and with users (CDA, cluster members, knowledge engineers,
“product innovation” as our mock-up problems due to and administrator) and also includes collaboration tools,
these problems are a knowledge intensive and feasible in repository, user’s database, content management, etc. In
business and technical aspect. the presentation service, CDA’s tools are included for
From the Task Model (TM-1 to TM-2), we analyzed helping CDA to facilitate the cluster, such as social
the feasibility of each tasks that related to product network analysis, cluster mapping. Knowledge acquisition
exporting and product innovation processes. This model part focused on supporting knowledge engineering
makes it possible to rank and prioritize the different process. During the manipulation stage, when user
knowledge-improvement scenarios. accesses the knowledge based, the ontology can support
Agent Model (AM-1) proposed organizational task of KM as well as searching. The knowledge based
recommendations, improvements, and actions. From the and the ontology is linked one to another via the ontology
experts’ point of view, they proposed actions for solving module. In the maintenance stage, knowledge engineers
product exporting and product innovation problems as or domain experts can add, update, revise, and delete the
follow, knowledge or domain ontology via knowledge acquisition
1) Develop information system that provides module.
knowledge from experts about product selection,
marketing information, or economic data from
government organization. IV. CONCLUSION
2) Archive past lesson learn or experiences with in
electronic forum In our preliminary study on handicraft cluster and
3) Create best practice of each task and store in knowledge engineering in context level, we acquired
knowledge-based system basic requirements for design knowledge management
4) Increasing the collaboration and information system for cluster.
sharing within the cluster.
a. Between core business and supporting

Fig. 3. A road map for carrying out knowledge oriented organization and task analysis.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT IBM Systems Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 814-830, 2001.
[18] M. Bonett, “Personalization of web services: Opportunities
and challenges”. Ariadne Issue 28, 2001.
The authors would like to thank Euro-Asia [19] KIASIA, “Cluster mapping project”, Final Report to
Collaboration and NetWorking in Information National Economic and Social Development Board
Engineering System Technology (EAST-WEST) project (NESDB), 2006.
which aim to increase the collaboration between European
countries and Asian countries in term of economics,
knowledge, innovation or human resource development.

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