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Chapter 11 Managing Knowledge 477

Discussion Questions

1. Knowledge management is a business process, 3. Your company wants to do more with knowledge
not a technology. Discuss. management. Describe the steps it should take to
2. Describe various ways that knowledge manage- develop a knowledge management program and
ment systems could help firms with sales and select knowledge management applications.
marketing or with manufacturing and produc-
tion.

Hands-On MIS Projects

The projects in this section give you hands-on experience designing a knowledge portal, identifying opportu-
nities for knowledge management, creating a simple expert system, and using intelligent agents to research
products for sale on the Web.

Management Decision Problems

1. U.S. Pharma Corporation is headquartered in New Jersey but has research sites in Germany, France, the
United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Australia. Research and development of new pharmaceuticals is key to
ongoing profits, and U.S. Pharma researches and tests thousands of possible drugs. The company’s
researchers need to share information with others within and outside the company, including the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical
Manufacturers & Associations. Also critical is access to health information sites, such as the U.S. National
Library of Medicine and to industry conferences and professional journals. Design a knowledge portal for
U.S. Pharma’s researchers. Include in your design specifications relevant internal systems and databases,
external sources of information, and internal and external communication and collaboration tools. Design a
home page for your portal.
2. Canadian Tire is one of Canada’s largest companies, with 57,000 employees and 1,200 stores and gas bars (gas
stations) across Canada selling sports, leisure, home products, apparel; and financial services as well as automo-
tive and petroleum products. The retail outlets are independently owned and operated. Canadian Tire was using
daily mailings and thick product catalogs to inform its dealers about new products, merchandise setups, best
practices, product ordering, and problem resolution and it is looking for a better way to provide employees with
human resources and administrative documents. Describe the problems created by this way of doing business and
how knowledge management systems might help.

Improving Decision Making: Building a Simple Expert System for
Retirement Planning

Software skills: Spreadsheet formulas and IF function or expert system tool
Business skills: Benefits eligibility determination

Expert systems typically use a large number of rules. This project has been simplified to reduce the number
of rules, but it will give you experience working with a series of rules to develop an application.
When employees at your company retire, they are given cash bonuses. These cash bonuses are based on
the length of employment and the retiree’s age. To receive a bonus, an employee must be at least 50 years of
age and have worked for the company for more than five years. The following table summarizes the criteria
for determining bonuses.

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