1. Knowledge Management Tools

2. Abstract • More and more companies use knowledge management to leverage theis most important resource : knowledge. Knowledge management tries to provide the means to capture, distribute and reuse knowledge both for explicit and tacit knowledge

3. Introduction • Efficient knowledge management is not only a competitive advantage but a vital activity for high-tech companies. Two kinds of knowledge must be preserved and managed : • Explicit knowledge • Tacit knowledge

4. Explicit & Tacit knowledge • Explicit knowledge is knowledge that is already available in the form of technical reports, meeting protocols, products specifications, etc. • Tacit knowledge is the knowledge that employees have in their brains in form of individual experience, design rationales, best practices and lessons learned. • Because of increasing specialization, increasing product complexity, fierce competition and a constant brain-drain of experts, knowledge management is regarded as the driving force for successful operations in the future.

5. What is a knowledge tool? • Knowledge management tools are technologies, broadly defined, which enhance and enable knowledge generation, codification, and transfer. As with any tools, they are designed to ease the burden of work, through augmentation and automation, allowing resources to be applied efficiently to the tasks for witch they are most suited.