A study on knowledge management practices in a manufacturing company S.D.UMAMAGESWARI I.AJAY RMK Engineering College Email: iajayaryan@gmail.

com
ABSTRACT: The traditional way of production was dependent on Man power and Machine power `which no longer hold well in the present scenario. The manufacturing sector will excel by adopting to knowledge management practices. In todays knowledge economy the core competency of the organization is measured on the knowledge criteria. This study attempts to analyze the knowledge practices in an automobile (BMW India PVT LTD, Chennai Plant) manufacturing company. The paper uses the descriptive approach using structured questionnaire as the research instrument. Sampling method adopted is Stratified random sampling. The extent of KM practices was evaluated with respect to the culture, leadership style, and Management commitment. Keywords: Knowledge management, knowledge management dimensions, Organization culture, Leadership, Management.. Knowledge Management has emerged as a core competency for organizations, be it large or small, IT or ITES, service or manufacturing organizations, in this present globalised and liberalized knowledge economy. KM is found to foster innovations, process and product improvements and thus in turn improves the competitive edge of the firms. KM helps in better decision making and problem solving skills of employees. Hence, the extent of adoption of knowledge management practices in an automobile manufacturing plant in Chennai is studied. The Company has to give importance to identify, recognize and reward and develop knowledge of the employees, so that the companys preeminent position among the clients is to retain and also make to grow. It is also for both to improvement of company performance and also to boost employees and employers well-being. The study conducted on the research area reveals the following: Majority of the respondents disagreed to the point that knowledge management is a technological concept. Only 16.7% of the employees agree that its a technological concept. The results reveal that the employees are aware that only technology cannot be knowledge management.

83.3% of the employees strongly agree that Knowledge management is a Business focus concept. More than two thirds of the respondents do not agree to the point that Knowledge Management is a situation and 16.7% of the employees are neutral that its situation concept. This may mean that the concept of situation is either unknown or the employees are well aware of the fact that KM cannot be a situational concept.

The above Percentage Analysis reveals that 16.7% of the employees disagrees that Knowledge Management is an intellectual assets and 83.3% of the employees neutral that Knowledge management is an intellectual assets.

Descriptive Statistics: Table - 1

Descriptive Statistics

Mean Organizational Culture Leadership style Management Commitment Knowledge capture Knowledge creation Knowledge sorting Knowledge transfer Knowledge application 2.0000 1.7778 2.1875 2.5952 2.5333 2.5926 2.9583 2.9286

Std. Deviation .38609 .53538 .38835 .50140 .87211 .26752 .41485 .77563

N 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24

By the above Descriptive statistics Mean value, employees responded positively towards organizational culture (2.00) in the organization. Most of the statements given under Organizational culture are rated between strongly agree (1) and agree (2). Hence we can conclude that the organization culture is significant for adopting knowledge management. By the above Descriptive statistics Mean value, employees are highly positive towards the leadership style (1.777) in the organization. Most of the statements given under Leadership styles are rated between strongly agree (1) and agree (2). Hence we can conclude

that the Leadership style is significant for adopting knowledge management. And the Management commitment (2.1875) is also very effective towards the employees in all the activities carried by them. From the above table we can also say from the mean value that Knowledge capture, knowledge creation, and knowledge sorting is agreed where the mean lays around 2.5 where majority of the employees are between agree and neutral, where 2 is specified as agree and 3 is specified as neutral. From the above table we can also bring out from the mean value that Knowledge transfer and knowledge application is neutral where the mean lays between 2.9 i.e nearly 3, where 3 we have specified as neutral. Knowledge application mean value (2.92) suggests that majority of the respondents expressed neutral view towards knowledge application. Eventhough, it is positive and on higher side of the scale, the firm has to focus more on knowledge application dimension. Linear regression is used to model the value of a dependent variable based on its linear relationship to one or more predictors. KM dimensions (Knowledge capture, knowledge creation, knowledge storage, and knowledge transfer and knowledge application), each of the dimensions is used as a dependent variable to carry out regression analysis with the three independent factors: 1. Organizational culture 2. Leadership 3. Management commitment It was observed that there is a linear relationship between the dependent variable and the factors mentioned. This was confirmed using a scatter plot and correlation analysis. R, the multiple correlation coefficients, is the correlation between the observed and predicted values of the dependent variable, and ranges from 0 to 1. Larger values of R indicate stronger relationships. The values of R 2 range from 0 to 1. Small values indicate that the model does not fit the data well; R2 is the proportion of variation in the dependent variable explained by the regression model (Hair et al., 1998).

Findings

From the percentage analysis chart it reveals that Maximum percentage of employees strongly disagreeing that Knowledge Management is a technical concept. Maximum percentage of employees strongly agrees that Knowledge Management is Business focus concept. Maximum percentage of employee strongly disagree that Knowledge Management is a situation concept .Maximum percentage of employees neutral that Knowledge management is an intellectual asset.

From the Comparison of mean it brings out that The organization culture (Mean 2.0) is significant for adopting knowledge management. The leadership style (Mean 1.7) followed by the managers and supervisors will make the employees as motivating factor to do their work in an efficient way. The management commitment (Mean 2.1) was also effective towards employees in all the activities carried by them. From the correlation analysis it disclose that .Above 50% to 82% is significant relationship between organizational culture and knowledge dimensions. Above 52.6% to 75.7% is significant relationship between leadership and knowledge dimensions. Above 59.1% to 90.7% is significant relationship between management and knowledge dimensions. From the Multiple Regression analysis can disclose that R square value vary from 0.85 to 0.939, the high values indicate that there is a significant association between the independent and dependent variables. Very high values of R and R square, 0.969 and 0.939 for Knowledge creation and independent variable association, may be due to the fact that the sample was from a single source. As a whole, the regression was appropriate for modeling. More than 80% of the variations in the dependent variable are explained by the model.

Conclusion
The result and findings of this research study clearly exemplifies the fact that an in depth study has been conducted in this topic and all the major objectives set for this research work has been fully accomplished. From the analysis it is found that the knowledge management process carried out in BMW INDIA (Chennai Plant) PVT LTD was satisfied and for further improvement measures should be taken towards knowledge management to enhance the further growth of the organization.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Books
1. Daryl Morey, Mark Maybury and Bhavani Thuraisingham.,Knowledge Management: Classic and Contemporary Works eds,. MIT Press,2000. 2. Sultan Kermally, Effective Knowledge Management: A Best Practice Blueprint, CBI ,2002 3. Kai Mertins, Peter Heisig, Jens Vorbeck Springer Verlag., Knowledge Management: Concepts and Best Practices (2nd Edition), 2003. 4. Madanmohan Rao, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann., Knowledge Management Tools and Techniques: Practitioners and Experts Evaluate KM Solutions,2004.

Websites:
1. http://www.cio.com/article/27087/Modern_Knowledge_Management_Application

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2. http://advice.cio.com/profound-thoughts-on-knowledge-management 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management 4. http://www.allkm.com/
Authors: Mrs.S.D.Umamageshwari Associateprofessor Department of Management studies- RMK Engineering College Mr.I.Ajay- Graduate, Department of Management Studies RMK Engineering Studies.