Supporting Research and Development Processes Using Knowledge Management Methods

Actually companies have to concentrate on their own core competencies to compensate the pressure coming from the market and the increasing complexity of processes, products or surrounding environment. Modern companies are specialized on similar fields and form work groups, work lines or even companies for this. Specialization means in this context: on the one hand high qualified employees and very special know how, but on the other hand a large amount of communication work. A holistic view and a long term plan are necessary to achieve such ambitious goals like knowledge management in a diversified or spread company. Our case shows the successful co-ordination of project handover and collaborative knowledge production between development and production division of Trumpf Maschinen Austria.