Instruments for the management of knowledge

In construction companies it is common practice that no formal insight exists in the experience acquired by building a project. As a result of this ‘practice’ wheels are re-invented. In general it is however assumed that experience is of great economic importance especially to these kind of firms. In this article a theory is described of knowledge management. A new profession is introduced: the knowledge manager. The central part of this theory consists of an inventory making method for representing experience. It produces a ‘road map’ to guide the discussions on ‘who learned what’ and ‘to whom must the experience be transferred’. Employees as the most ‘cognitive actors’ in problem-solving can be traced. The management can decide on whether to emphasise the concentration of knowledge by these persons or to emphasise the transfer of their knowledge to others. The use and meaning of electronic databases and applications of artificial-intelligence techniques for each of the approaches are completely different.