Influencing factors and methods for knowledge transfer situations in Product Generation Engineering based on the SECI model

Abstract

Products are developed in teams and based on knowledge gained in previous development projects. This makes knowledge transfer a key factor for the success of product development. In addition is the development time a crucial factor. Increasing the speed of knowledge transfer is hence of great importance for product development. The SECI model describes knowledge transfer with four types of knowledge conversion and is used as a basis for a project which aims at increasing the speed of knowledge transfer in product development. This contribution describes the design and results of a workshop with experts as a descriptive study. The workshop was used to collect influencing factors for knowledge transfer as well as important transfer situations and estimate their relevance to align further investigations. Furthermore a generic framework is presented as a prescriptive study. The framework shows how transfer situations and conversion methods can be characterized and how measures for increasing the speed of knowledge transfer can be derived.