A knowledge-based system for knowledge management capability assessment model evaluation

It is now commonly accepted that high quality knowledge management programmes lead to competitive advantages for the organizations. Several knowledge management maturity models have been proposed with the aim of evaluating the quality of knowledge management programmes in organizations. These models are classified into two large groups: CMM-based models and models that are not CMM-related. One of the best known CMM-based models is the Knowledge Management Capability Assessment (KMCA) model. Even so, the acquisition of a knowledge management level may imply a considerable amount of audits. It is therefore very interesting to minimise the costs by paying only for the truly indispensable audits. This article proposes a Knowledge-Based System that makes it possible to evaluate an organization at a KMCA maturity level. It limits the services of an auditor to those cases in which the system's response complies with the requested knowledge management maturity level. This clearly implies an important cost reduction for audits with negative results. The design of this system is based on the CommonKADS methodology, and its implementation was carried out with the Clips tool.