Connor Formed Metal Products Knowledge Management

Another interesting article is Connor Formed Metal Products by L. Applegate, D. Stoddard, and M. Conrad. This article talked about the manager Sloss’ open mindedness and willing to give the “blue collar” employees a voice took the company to the next level with using information systems. By giving the employees who were on the floor the ability to enter annotations about a job and to let the upper management know of prospective problems or give solutions elevated the company’s progress. Even though the Sloss implemented this in type of knowledge management in the Los Angeles Plant, he didn’t in all the rest of the plants. In my opinion this will cause the pathology of “knowledge is power”. I think he figured that since the Los Angeles Plant is the biggest then it was the only one in need of this, but if he would have took the time out to have training sessions on the technology in each of the other plants, he could have gradually implemented the system in those as well. Like Nucor Corporation, Sloss could have done manager rotation. Sending top level managers to other plants to implement the same think they have in the Los Angeles Plant.

Sloss’ focus on making quality products was ethically the right idea, but it may have cost Connor revenue. Due to Connor’s competitors both nationally and internationally, Sloss had to find a niche’ which was 100% quality. I think that by Connor having so many competitors who were much larger than them could have the same focus of 100% quality, but I also feel that there was no uniqueness factor in this niche. This was easily duplicated and accessible. The larger competitors also had more revenue to put behind making perfect products. In order for Connor to gain the upper hand on these companies they should have expanded to using refurbished goods, like Nucor using the scrap metal.

Connor was a great company to be employed by because of all the incentives, but I feel as though the rewards were much greater than the risks. Connor was giving the employees a chance to be stock holders, but stock was given away too often. The “stretch-goals” that Nucor used for their system would have been ideal here.

I think that the managers should have played more of a role in goal setting and monitoring the employees. It would have given the company a better idea of what innovations could improve productivity.

Just-in-Time Delivery Comes to Knowledge Management

In this article, it speaks about the constantly changing medical field and the knowledge about 10,000 diseases and syndromes, 3,000 medications, 1,100 lab tests and additions to biomedical literature which equals about 400,000. The article discusses the amount of knowledge Dr. Goldszer must have. By showing all of these shocking dynamics it illustrate of the knowledge-intensive character of knowledge management. Of the reactions that were preventable, more than half were caused by inappropriate drug prescriptions. I found this statement to be frightening, but this problem of knowledge management is not only in the medical field, but it can be found in almost every other occupation as well.

The author points out the fact that the earlier generations of knowledge management required some additional work even after the initial work was complete. The key to success is to bake specialized knowledge into the jobs of highly skilled workers. Partners HealthCare has started to embed knowledge into the technology that doctors use in their jobs so that consulting it is no longer a separate activity.Knowledge-based order entry, referral, computerized medical-record, and event-detection systems operate in real-time, at least in the case examined here. The authors offer six suggestions ranging from technical to managerial and cultural factors to help executives get started implementing their new system.

By tailoring just-in-time knowledge management system to deliver the right supporting information for the job at hand could benefit other knowledge workers in their specific fields.

How Nucor Operates

Many of you, like myself before reading the Knowledge Management’s Social Dimension: Lesson from Nucor Steel case, may not know what Nucor Steel does, or may not realize why they are at the top of their industry. The videos are a great example of how Nucor produces their product as well as how the employees interact with each other. It also gives a brief explanation about their incentive program. Feel free to leave comments and add other videos relating to this topic.





Nucor breaks its net sales into 4 main segments: Steel Mills, Steel Products, Raw Materials, and All Other.

NUCOR'S JOB GROWTH

Knowledge Management’s Social Dimension: Lesson from Nucor Steel

I read an article, Knowledge Management’s Social Dimension: Lesson from Nucor Steel. This article was based around social ecology- that is, the social environment within which people operate. While most companies are lacking the social ecology, Nucor Steel is at the forefront of this. In my opinion social ecology is the way information is passed around throughout an organization. Information technology is probably the most viable and efficient way to connect, but it is not the only way and most companies overuse or misuse it. Nucor on the other hand, stayed in front of technology by taking risks and reaping the rewards. While developing these new technologies it is imperative that the information get disseminated throughout the organization, which Nucor was an expert at doing.

The reason for Nucor’s success at social ecology was their leadership style and management which was indicated as giving people the freedom, resources and training to do their jobs but not getting in their way. The way Nucor treated each individual that worked for them really impressed me. Not only were the employees motivated by incentives, they were also self motivated through the open performance records. Nucor also stayed away from the plague of “knowledge is power” in a sense. The reason why I say in a sense is because Nucor did realize that “knowledge is power”, but knowledge throughout the entire Nucor Steel Coperation.

The employee empowerment and incentives really was an effective tool to not only evoke the social ecology, but to also keep Nucor at the top of the steel industry. Giving employees the ability to explore new and more effective ways to be more beneficial also increase their moral, empower them, and also give them a sense of trust. If that wasn’t enough Nucor came up with the “share the pain” program: which stated that any reduction in worker’s compensation was accompanied by a greater reduction in managers’ and the CEO’s pay.

Nucor‘s ability to be effective in knowledge management social ecology came from its leadership.