Electricity & Energy

The electricity and energy industry is one of the industries to which all countries are somehow connected, consumer or producer. Consequently, the global market and the opportunities, threats, weaknesses, and strengths in this field that come to countries and companies active in this field increase the importance of knowledge management.
In this vast market, every day, there are new students, new crises, new learning opportunities, intensifying efforts in countries and companies to preserve knowledge, which create various threats, and in fact, it is impossible to say without knowledge management and management of lessons learned the company would be sufficient. Many Companies such as active companies in electricity, water, ABFA, new energies, etc. are available, which show how vast the activities in these areas are.
In electricity, we can mention regional electricity companies, electricity distribution companies, power plants, and Iranian electricity network management companies. Each of these companies and different and diverse fields of knowledge also has a geographical extent, which indicates the need to identify experts, identify the knowledge, share knowledge and reuse the product knowledge in each company and between companies.

Benefits of knowledge management in the electricity and energy industry

Considering the issues raised regarding the need to apply knowledge management in this industry, in this section we will discuss the benefits of implementing knowledge management in the electricity and energy industry:
• Knowledge enhancement between companies
• Identify knowledge gaps in each company and improve the technical and managerial knowledge of companies
• Identify, share and apply best practices in any field of knowledge
• Targeting the training and development of human resources in each company
• Improving people's interactions by creating interactive knowledge spaces at the company level and between companies
• Improve access to knowledge and documentation
• Use of knowledge management systems and software to facilitate communication between scholars
• Improving decisions in the field of managerial and technical knowledge
• Creating learning organizations by the learning process

Implementation of knowledge management in General Electric Company

General Electric was founded in 1878 by Edison. His goal was to produce light bulbs commercially. From 1892 he worked under the name of General Electric, and the peak of the company flourished in the 8th and 9th years with the presence of the legendary Jack Welch. GE's knowledge management system began with Jack Welch's vision to turn the organization into a knowledge network.
They showed how an effective management strategy and a desire for change in organizational culture could enable knowledge sharing at all levels of an organization. In General, Electric, to facilitate communication between scientists, software called Support Central was implemented, and besides, significant work was done that is addressed.

Major Knowledge Management Activities at GE

• Identify the types of knowledge needed to support the organization's strategies
• Identify the skills and expertise of each of the company's scientists
• Store existing knowledge in specific formats
• Collection and maintenance of foreign knowledge and information
• Store all knowledge in a categorized and related knowledge base
• Implement knowledge-sharing network.
• Integration of knowledge network with the decision-making process in the company
• Create new knowledge and value research and development at the company level
• Implementation of Support Central system
• Launching expert associations at the company level
There are 165,000 users in General Electric's knowledge management system, and about 1,300 active expert associations are sharing knowledge. It is estimated that GE spent $ 8 million over two years to generate over $ 60 million in knowledge management returns.