Deploy Knowledge Management andERPConcurrently inExtended Enterprise Environment

Knowledge isconsidered as an enterprise's invisible assets. Surviving intoday's highly competitive andever expanding global economyincreasingly raised requires for extended enterprises tostimulate theintegration ofknowledge management (KM)function intoERP systems forknowledge asset management. Duetothefact thatbothtypes ofassets need tobeproperly managed, theintegration ofKM andERP becomesa strategic initiative forproviding competitive advantages toenterprises. Thispaperdiscusses howtodeploy KM andERP concurrently intheframework ofenterprise information systems, withadiscussion oftheinteraction ofKM andERPsystems insystems perspectives. I.INTRODUCTION JN theeraofglobal economy, theworld-wide business environment hasbeendramatically changed inrecent years whichcontributed totoday's competition inmanyindustry sectors (LiandLi,2000). Enterprise information systems such asERPsystems havebeenadopted andimplemented ata speedy pacesince ERPcanhelp enterprises toimprove their competitiveness. Insuchahighly dynamic environment, enterprises alsoincreasingly recognize thatknowledge management isoneofthemostimportant factors contributing tobusiness success. Ingeneral, anenterprise, especially a high-tech enterprise, hastwomajor types ofassets, physical andknowledge assets (Drucker 1993). Today's enterprises areforced toconduct their business withthehelpof knowledge management andtheir competitive edgelargely depends onknowledge, expertise, know-how, patents, and innovations. A.Knowledge management andknowledge management systems Knowledge hasbeendefined slightly different bymany authors. Forexample, Daverport andPrusak argued that knowledge isa mixofexperience, values, contextual information, andexpert insight that provides aframework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. According tothis, although knowledge isrelated tobothdataandinformation; butisneither datanor