There have been one or two studies that addresed how the manufacturing
learning curve is affected by a break in production. Although the data is
hard to come by, the general conclusion is that the learning accrued
during continuous production, as measured by the decrease in unit cost
compared to the first unit produced, decays exponentially over time. Some
of the factors mitigating that decay and loss of learning are the extent
to which the "learning," that is the processes, techniques and unique
knowledge, is documented, publicized and transferrable to others.
One major airplane manufacturer was faced with the shutdown of an
established production line. Although the manufacturer was not sure
whether the line would ever restart, they decided to capture as much of
the "learning" embedded in the indivual production workers as possible.
Prior the shut down, they video taped each worker at his or her station.
The relationship between the manufacturing learning curve and
organizational learning is that the experience which a manufacturing
organization goes through in acquiring production learning, roughly
parallels the experience of other business, educational or governmental
organizations. You touched on two defining parameters of learning within
an organisation: knowledge retention and knowledge accessibility. Perhaps
by adding two more, you could round out the circle of learning parameters
to form a general concept. The factors affecting learning are, in my
opinion, as follows:
Acquisition - Acquisition of learning varies from learning by doing to
learning by example to learning by appreciation.
Retention - The extent to which the learning is retained depends upon the
vessel. To quote a sage, a fresh piece of paper receives the words; a
paper with erasures recieves the words less. Thus a fresh approach is
often retained better than a retrial of a worn method.
Accession - As you indicated, the accessability of organizational learning
is paramount to its use. The knowledge that has been so dearly acquired
is only of potential utility until it is accessed by a user.
Deployment - As many applicants for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award (MBNQA) have learned, the deployment of systematic improvements and
methods of operations is very difficult. Deployment of "lessons learned"
is the primary value added activity of management. The facilition of that
deployment, the provision of an atmosphere where the deployment of leaning
is encouraged, is the stock and trade of superior organizations.
Although I know of no studies relating Corporate Memory Loss to the
factors you described. Perhaps it is appropriate, however, to explain
how the parameters I outlined above could be applied to the factors you
listed. That application, shown somewhat cryptically for today, is
presented below:
| \|/ KNOWLEDGE --> | Acquisition | Retention | Accession | Deployment | : ENVIRONMENT |_____________________________________________________________________ __| 1. Company structure. | RESOURCES VS |DEPTH OF |MANAGEMENT |PARALLEL VS.SERIAL | | OPPORTUNITY | BENCH | SYSTEM | AUTHORITY | 2. Use/misuse of enabling technologies. | POSITION ON |DOCUMENTATION |PROCESS VS. | ADOPTERS VS LAGGARDS | | THE S-CURVE | | PRODUCT | | 3. Evolving corporate mythology. | LIGHTHOUSE |JUDGING PEOPLE |INCREASING |CULTURE OF INCLUSION, | | PARADIGM | DOES NOT HELP | CHAOS |OPENNESS, TRUST AND | | THEM W.EDWARDS | |VALUING EVERYONE'S | | DEMING | |CONTRIBUTION. M. RAFF| 4. Human resources management strategies. |TRAINING |MOBILITY OF |ABILITY TO FLY |COMPENSATION STRUCTURE| | |PERSONNEL |HANGAR MISSIONS|AND FRAMEWORK | 5. Growth and globalisation efforts. |FORMATION & |COMMUNITY- |WORLD-WIDE WEB |STRETCH GOALS | |INTEGRATION OF |BASED LEARNING | | | |TEAMS | | | | 6. Downsizing. |UNRAVELLING OF |IF ATMOSPHERE OF|CAPABILITY |PERSPECTIVE AND | |TEAMS |DIALOG PREVAILS | MATURITY |EXPECTATIONS | |_______________|________________|_______________|__________________ ____|
[Host's Note: I doubt that the matrix above will be well formatted except
for a few readers with wide screens. ...Rick]
--"Harrow, Stuart C." <bvc2206@dcrb.dla.mil>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>