Knowledge Management: PETRONAS

IntroductionToday, anele and gas companies around the world atomic number 18 not just professional makeups who specialize in mechanical bore and extraction growthes. Increased oil demands and the need for improved productivity read forced these organizations into new methods and kat onceledge intensive approaches. For instance information engineering science has now move around very much an integral part of the oil exploration and oil extraction blood line. The collaboration between multi disciplinary aggroups has become a norm. Real-time information communication from remote reservoirs, and processing of such(prenominal) data in a collaborative environment that involves multiple teams and marketer locations has become an essential part of the business decision making process. In other words, a companionship found approach underlies the critical business decisions in oil majors. (Jemielniak &038 Kociatkievicz, 2009, pg 284). As an oil and gas extraction troupe of the w orld, with presence in much(prenominal) than 30 countries across the world, PETRONAS is one of the rock oil Majors. Being an increasingly combative sector, apt staff are incessantly on demand in the crude oil and bobble industry. This implies that organizations have to crusade against scrape and be armed with efficient familiarity worryment practices that man term vital information about processes, beaver practices and information about sphere experts and tacit noesis about the entire transactional processes. Effective fellowship attention process is at the heart of business scrap and success. friendship focal point friendship is a multidimensional and heterogeneous entity. Proper storage, motley and retrieval of acquaintance is critical for innovation, cost control and hence the competitiveness of any industry. Particularly, for knowledge intensive firms such as PETRONAS, where high skilled engineering processes are involved, there is a need for integrated operations between various knowledge areas. Ultimately, improving the production optimization process is at the heart of each(prenominal) knowledge management practices in PETRONAS. 1 of the important areas that lack coordination in the Oil and gas sector in general is the working of the reservoir engineers, the production engineers and the process engineers at the facilities. This implies that operation decisions are not always made in consultation with the onshore engineers. In other words this leads to what is known as the fragmented approach. (Jemielniak &038 Kociatkievicz) 2009, pg 285 merged Operations (Process facility and reservoir sensors and Collaboration among vendors and operators) (Jemielniak &038 Kociatkievicz, 2009, pg 285)Information technology has now penetrated every area of the production and process control aspects of the Oil and Gas companies. However, most of these IT faunas are specialized and lack the integration that makes it difficult to bother rel evant data for purposes of production analysis and optimization. It is necessary that all the collar major divisions (reservoir management, production management and process management) ex compound real-time data. A shared information space might be the answer to the problems as it promotes soften access to real-time data and integration of the various processes, which is the get wind to achieving production optimization. (Jemielniak &038 Kociatkievicz, 2009, pg 284)Knowledge Management in PETRONASKnowledge management practices are very recent at PETRONAS. As the Knowledge Management manager, throw Murni Shariff, disclosed in a recent interview, only in 2006 the federation seriously focused on KM practices. Prior to that KM was generally restricted to content and information management. (KMTalk, 2009) There are two types of knowledge detectly tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge, as the name suggests, refers to knowledge that could be easily documented. This type of knowledge is gained by reading, ceremonial occasion and discussion. For instance, documented guides about a program or the operational features of a product are examples of explicit knowledge. mum knowledge, on the other hand, is to a greater extent implicit and it is not easy to document it and consequently much harder to share. Tacit knowledge is developed over a period of time when an idiosyncratic gains insights and details about the various functions in the organization. (MMU, 2006)Currently, PETRONAS is focusing on all efforts towards transferring this tacit knowledge of its staff and making it accessible for future consultation and for new workers. Achieving this tacit knowledge sharing pertaining to the various complex processes at bottom the organizations is crucial for the company to reduce costs and become competitive. As Stephen Birell, merchandise director of Vardus, a KM company focusing on the Oil and gas sector states, The way the industry can d rive rectify cost is by attacking the areas of huge cost which are facilities and drilling. And if everyone preserves best practice and shares their learning, you wont have people making the identical mistakes twice. And that ultimately saves money. (Chowdury, 2006)Three issues are the main motivating factors for the implementation of KM practices across the organization. These are 1) aging workforce- With more than three and half decades since its constitution many of the technical staff members at PETRONAS are nearing their retirement age and this mass retirement would drastically impact upon the performance unless swift knowledge management policies are in place to capture the tacit knowledge of these experienced older workforce. 2) The global oil industry is very competitive placing a high premium for the experienced and knowledgeable workforce. High attrition rate at PETRONAS is one big problem as competitors are luring skilled staff. In this context the issue of Trust bec omes foremost. The following 5 Cs are recognized as trust factors among knowledge intensive workers. These are a) Competence, b) Commitment, c) Conflict, d) Communication and e) Caring. Of these commitment is foremost and it is the responsibility of the team leader or the manager to ensure that commitment to the organization and its determine are developed naturally as a response to the motivation and example shown by the leader. (Ralston, 2007) Finally, increasing multinational operations withal implies international competition and in this scenario an effective KM plan is indispensible for the organization to swimmingly manage and coordinate the international operations. KM makes it possible to simply follow the PETRONAS way of transferring knowledge across the different organizations. (KMtalk, 2009) Initially, the main focus was on technology and in removing the hindrances in sharing knowledge stored in change database formats. However, more than the technical problems it is the problem associated with human betrothal that is currently a pressing issue. In other words, promoting effective change management is the tell to implementing KM practices. At PETRONAS new initiatives were implemented to promote better change management.Communities of Practice A new, Communities of practice ( pick up) initiative was implemented with the idea of head start an effective KM program across the entire organization to better facilitate transfer of information between the various divisions in a swift and effective manner. Currently, there are over 50 hairs with each Cop having 30 members. A leader or a champion is chosen among each CoP team based on their performance criteria. The CoPs were provided with a basic structural framework with which they can implement KM solutions and promote group-wide collaborative values. fixedness monitoring of the CoP operations and impact of the same are undertaken. These leadership are similarly encouraged to share succ ess stories on online CoP newsletter. To encourage enthusiastic participation from the staff, the Knowledge management team is also currently promoting a rewards system wherein the reports from the various Cops would be reviewed and the best performing team recognized and awarded (Murni Shariff, 2008) This CoP approach at PETRONAS has shown significant positive results so far with effective information metamorphose between various operating units already visible across the organization. This would also significantly improve the training for younger generation staff as they fast replace the retiring older generation. A simple online tool that was designed to evaluate the penetration of the CoP based KM practices has confirm these positive improvements. ( Murni Shariff, 2008)ConclusionKnowledge management practices are critical to the go along competitive growth of any organization. In simple terms it facilitates effective reuse of organizational resources which is tant mensuration to considerable cost savings. Particularly, in a knowledge intensive and high-tech organization such as PETRONAS, KM practices help to promote better collaboration between multidisciplinary teams. This could help rescind millions of dollars in costs by helping workers avoid unnecessary delays and insistent mistakes. The current KM practices involving Communities of practice concepts are showing good acceptance among the staff which is important for effective change management. As more and more staff members are encouraged to participate in KM activities, more intensive KM practices and collaborative platforms could be established. This would help in realizing organization wide process integration and overall business alignment. However, regular knowledge auditing is the key to understand the flow of knowledge within the organization and to promise areas where improvements could be effected by increasing knowledge sharing. Continued management support is the key as even a small amount of time and resources spent on good KM practices would definitely submit to considerable productivity gains in the longer run.ReferencesDariusz Jemielniak &038 Jerzy Kociatkievicz, (2009), Handbook of research on Knowledge intensive organizations, Pub by Information Science Reference. trust Ralston, (2007), How to manage four types of Knowledge Workers- Play Your Best Hand, Adams Media. U.S.AKMtalk, (2009) Knowledge Management in PETRONAS Interview with Murni Shariff, viewed Jan 23rd 2012, Murni Shariff, (2008), PETRONAS Engaging Knowledge Worker Communities to receive Innovation and Build Corporate Capability, Viewed Jan 23rd 2012, Naguib Chowdhury, (2006), Knowledge Management writ of execution in PETRONAS A Case Study, Viewed Jan 23rd 2012, Manchester Metropolitan University, (2006) Introduction to Knowledge Management, viewed Jan 24th 2012,